I'm still having troubles with the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Why does the Church insist on this dogma, and doesn't it contradict the Bible?

Recall that there are three common objections to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which are made by modern Protestants in general and Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in particular:

• Only God is sinless. So if Catholics believe that Mary is sinless too, does that not mean that Catholics make Mary into God (or a god)? Jesus was sinless because He Is God.
• Isn't sin a part of human nature? Then how can Catholics believe that Mary was conceived without sin?
• Doesn't the Bible itself tell us that all of us are sinners—and so doesn't this belief necessarily contradict the Bible?

There may be a number of other less-frequent objections, but, as I have mentioned before, to treat every objection would require too much time for even a short series of posts (or RCIA sessions). In the previous installments of this short series, I considered in turn the doctrine of original sin and what the Church teaches concerning the Immaculate Conception, and then I replied to the first two objections. Today, I would like to wrap-up by considering a few of the Biblical verses concerning this doctrine.

There are some passages which are often cited as "proof" texts against this doctrine: most especially Saint Paul's letter to the Romans. In this epistle, we read that "None is righteous, no not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong. No one does good, not even one" (Romans 3:10-12, citing Psalm 14). We'll begin with this passage. It's worth asking just what it is that St Paul is trying to address when he wrote these verses. He is in the middle of considering a question about Jews and Gentiles: namely, is one group to be favored over the other amongst Christians?

Recall that the apostle had just finished discussing judgment under the Mosaic Law, "Now if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of God....You who boast of the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, 'Because of you the name of God is reviled among the Gentiles'" (Romans 2:17, 23-24). The Jews might boast of having the Law, of knowing it--but there is no merit in merely knowing the Law if it is not kept, and kept for God's glory. "One is not a Jew outwardly. True circumcision is not outward, in the flesh. Rather, one is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter; his praise is not from human beings but from God" (Romans 2:28-29).

The third chapter of this epistle is a continuation of this discussion. It begins by asking--for the sake of argument--if there is a value in having been Jewish as opposed to Gentile prior to conversion: and ultimately whether Gentile converts must first be circumcised, become in effect Jews, and only then be baptized and become Christians. This then leads up to the passages cited, though it is prefaced by the verse "Well then, are we [those who were Jews] better off? Not entirely, for we have already brought the charge against Jews and Greeks [Gentiles] alike that they are under the domination of sin" (Romans 3:9).

Thus, Romans 3:9-12 is in answer to a squabble between Christians as to whether the Jews or the Gentiles were "better." And despite the harsh language against the Jews in the preceding verses, the answer ultimately does not pick either side. In the second volume of his Mary, Mother of the Son trilogy, Catholic convert Mr Mark Shea writes of this passages that
"Paul's answer to the question, 'Who's God's favorite?: Jews of Gentiles?' is 'That's a nonsense question.' In fact, Paul's basic point in the first part of his letter to the Romans is that people who worry about being 'ahead' or 'behind' in a competition for God's favor are like cancer patients fighting over who is the least terminal. The only distinction, he says, between Jews and Gentiles is that God gave Jews an X-ray machine called the Law of Moses so that they could see the progress of the disease called 'sin' as it ravaged their souls and, thereby, become aware of their need for the Divine Physician. But that was it: the X-ray machine could only show Jews how sick they were. It could not heal them in the slightest. So Jews are no closer to health than Gentiles, says Paul. Sin is eating away at all of us. And Jesus is the only one who can cure it."

Indeed, this is also a good summary of the last third of that chapter from Romans. There we read that we "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Gentile or Jew, "there is no distinction," it does not matter: for none of us is justified apart from Christ. And since Christ owes neither Jew nor Gentile anything in particular (Romans 11:35), neither one has any especial "bragging rights" to hold over the other. Hence, his statement later in that same epistle, "God has consigned all people to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all" (Romans 11:32). In his Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanists" by "Bible Christians", Catholic apologist Mr Karl Keating writes of these verses,
What about Romans 3:23, 'all have sinned'? Fundamentalists, as a rule, think it means more than that everyone is subject to original sin. They think it means everyone commits actual sins. They conclude it means Mary must have sinned during her life, and that certainly would speak against an Immaculate Conception. Is the fundamentalists' analysis solid? Not really. Think about a child below the age of reason. By definition he cannot sin, since sin requires the ability to reason and the ability to intend to sin. If the child dies before ever committing an actual sin, because he is not mature enough to know what he is doing, what act of his brings him under their interpretation of Romans 3:23? None, of course.

Paul's comment to the Christians in Rome thus would seem to have one of two meanings. Despite the phrasing, it might be that it refers not to absolutely everyone, but just to the mass of mankind (which means young children and other special cases, such as Mary, would be excluded without having to be singled out). If not that, then it would mean that everyone, without exception, is subject to original sin, which is true for a young child, for the unborn child, even for Mary--but she, although due to be subject to it, was preserved from its stain.

This interpretation--that "all" does not refer to absolutely everybody--relies on the use of "all" in what is known as the "collective sense." It is a type of broad generalization which is meant to be open-ended inclusive, but which can be exclusive to specific cases (e.g. small children, Mary, and for that matter Jesus). This is explained at length by Mr Mark Shea, who writes:
"The 'collective' sense is a common occurrence in Scripture. For example...when Mark tells us that 'all held that John was a real prophet,' (Mark 11:32) he employs a similarly general use of the word, for it's quite clear that some Jews didn't regard John as a prophet and rejected his testimony to Jesus. And of course, we do the same thing when we say, 'Everybody likes a good meal,' 'Nobody wants to die,' or 'We all cheered at the end of Star Wars.' Strictly speaking, there are certain peope who don't like to eat and who do want to die. There are (amazingly) even a few who do not like Star Wars. But since we're human beings and not pedants, we go ahead and talk this way.

Paul is no different. Like most biblical writers, he speaks as an ordinary human being in stating a general truth about the sinfulness of the human race without intending to single out absolutely every human being throughout all space and time without any exception whatsoever. He assumes that we'll understand that. And the proof of this is found in Paul's own writing.

For instance, Paul recognizes that infants, although children of Adam and therefore subject to original sin, are not capable of committing individual personal, guilty sins. That's why he writes of Jacob and Esau that when they were still in utero they 'had done nothing either good or bad' (Rom. 9:11). But he does not laboriously explain that children below the age of reason are not capable of sinning when he declares 'all have sinned.' He expects us to know this exception, just as he expects us to know that the son of Adam named 'Jesus of Nazareth' is also not included in the 'all' who have sinned.'

In other words, not only was this particular usage of "all" somewhat common among the New Testament writers, it is in fact somewhat common in use today. It is because neither St Paul nor we are especially pedantic in our word choices.

This brings me back to Mr Keating's other interpretation, which is "that everyone, without exception, is subject to original sin, which is true for a young child, for the unborn child, even for Mary--but she, although due to be subject to it, was preserved from its stain." What does it mean to be subject to original sin and yet free from its stain? Recall what has already been said about the effects of original sin:
"Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence" (CCC405).
Now, as Catholics we believe that St Mary never actually sinned, so some of these effects must be completely mitigated by God's grace--hence, freedom from the stains of original sin. We do, however, believe that she suffered in this life; we indeed have a traditional set of devotions to the "Seven Sorrows of Mary" which certainly indicate suffering. And, moreover, the dogma of her assumption does not rule out the possibility of her death [1].

All of this brings me to another verse which is relevant to this discussion: the angelic salutation to Mary during the Annunciation. "The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you'"(Luke 1:28). The first part of this translation is often rendered as, 'Hail, full of grace!' In Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, Mr David Currie writes,
"The important point to notice is that Mary is not addressed by Gabriel as 'Mary'. She is addressed as 'full of grace', as though that were her name. When we unpack the Greek meaning of these words, Gabriel called Mary 'The One Most Full of God's Gracious Gift of His Life in All Time'.

By definition, being full of God's grace means an absence of sin. If Mary was more full of God's life than anyone in history, that statement includes Eve. We all know that Eve started life without sin. Although the passage is not explicit, it certainly makes sense that Mary also must have started life without original sin. Otherwise, Eve would have been given the name 'The One Most Full of God's Gracious Gift of His Life in All Time'. The original Greek implies that this state of being full of God's grace is not limited by time. Mary always was (since her conception) and always will be (for the rest of her life) full of the grace of God. To make this possible, Mary must have lived a life without sin."

Karl Keating continues this line of thought when he writes:
"The grace Mary enjoyed must not only have been as 'full' or strong or complete as possible at any given time, but it must have extended over the whole of her life, from conception. That is, she must have been in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence to have been called 'full of grace' or to have been filled with the divine favor in a singular way. This is just what the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception holds: that Mary, 'in the first instance of her conception was, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, preserved exempt from all stain of original sin' [Ineffabilis Deus]....

It took a positive act of God to keep her from coming under its effects in the way we have. We had the stain of original sin removed through baptism, which brings sanctifying grace to the soul, thus making the soul spiritually alive and capable of enjoying heaven, and makes the recipient a member of the Church. We might say that Mary received a very special kind of 'baptism' at her conception, but, because she never contracted original sin, she enjoyed certain privileges we never can, such as entire avoidance of sin."

Note well the implication, which is that Mary also needed a Savior. This is a point which is never denied by Catholics [2], we just note that the way in which she is saved is a little different from the rest of us.

One analogy--employed by Dr Steve Ray and also by Mr Mark Shea--is to think of being saved from a pit. A man might be walking along not paying attention then take a wrong step and fall into a pit. The man's Savior in that case is the One who pulls him out of the pit and then cleans the dirt and mud from the pit off of him. But there is another way in which a person can be saved from falling into a pit: at the last moment before he steps in, his Savior could grab him and hold him back from the edge.

This latter possibility does actually operate in our own lives, though we often take it for granted. I have been saved from (for example) the sin of being a practicing homosexual because the idea is repulsive to me: there is no inclination in me to that particular sin. Now, is that revulsion against that particular sin something which I have given myself? No, rather it is a small amount of God's grace working in my life, in this case by how He made me; I was born this way, but not through any particular merit or choice of my own. In a similar manner am I saved from a countless number of other sins: I am not a drug dealer or junkie, nor a pimp or jiggolo, nor an abortionist or any other type of murderer. I avoided these things through God's grace, be it through his constant action in my life or through more passive channels such as how my parents raised me, or what God gave me as innate likes and dislikes, etc. Yet, I cannot boast of any of these things--or if I do, then let me boast only of Christ (Galatians 6:14).

This sort of grace is also what has operated in the case of the Immaculate Conception. Just as the thought of murdering someone in cold blood is so revolting to me that I am not tempted to do it, so it is with any other sin concerning our Lady. But why would God do this for Mary? There are several reasons. One is the question of Old Testament typology [3]. Another concerns certain prophecies, for example: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel" (Genesis 3:15)--the woman being Mary, her "offspring" being Jesus, and the serpent being the Devil, Satan (see also Wisdom 2:24, John 8:44, Revelation 12:19 and 20:2). This prophecy is less-than-fulfilled if Mary herself is a slave to sin and hence to the master of sin (again, see John 8:44).

Blessed John Duns Scotus suggests another good reason why God would preserve Mary from all sin: because as the perfect Savior, He might save one person perfectly from sin.
"He who is the most perfect mediator must have a 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" [Commentarium in Sententiarum, III, 3, 1, 4].

So our Lady is the person whom Christ saved perfectly from all sin, in accordance with the prophecy given in Genesis. But the glory here belongs not to Mary, but to God. That this doctrine does give more glory to God is a good reason for the Church to insist upon it.

----Footnotes----
[1] The dogma is actually silent on this point. We only say that at the end of her life, she is assumed body and soul into heaven by the power of God. This may be at the moment of her death, or the moment before, or the moment after. The dogma doesn't specify, and so as good Catholics we are free to believe either way.

[2] Incidentally, the further implication of this is that Mary is not herself divine or Godlike. Hence, more explanation as to how Catholics can say that she is without sin and yet is not God.

[3] I would recommend Professor Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen and Mr Mark Shea's Mary, Mother of the Son trilogy (and in that order) to read more on this point.