Mary’s Immaculate Conception (vs. Steve Hays)

*

What would count as evidence for the Immaculate Conception? What kind of evidence would even be probative? In the nature of the case, there could be no physical evidence for the Immaculate Conception. [all citations from page 536 in his book, Catholicism]

*

As in my many defenses of it:

*

*

In what respect, if at all, would the Immaculate Conception even be detectable to Mary or her parents?
*

Primarily by special revelation, which is precisely what Mary received. God sent the angel Gabriel to her. Secondly, as she went through life, due to being preserved from original sin, Mary wouldn’t be burdened by the concupiscence (tendency or desire to sin) that the rest of us labor under, and she would come to be aware of that by talking to others who did have to deal with it. Her lack of actual sin would also set her apart from everyone around her except for Jesus.
*

Assuming (ex hypothesi) that Mary was sinless, what evidence could there be that she was sinless from the moment of her conception, rather than at some later stage in utero, or as a newborn baby, or one-year-old? In other words, if God intervened to exempt her from the stain of original sin, how would Mary or her parents know when that happened? Even in principle, how could there be any evidence for the timing of God’s intervention?
*

Good and interesting question. I’m just speculating (hopefully piously!), but I think that it would be an extrapolation from knowledge of Old Testament saints like Jeremiah being chosen and set aside from the womb and pondering that such a special grace may as well be from the very beginning of her preborn life or conception, according to what was known (biologically) of such things in those days. They knew that a person began in the womb (as a result of intercourse), formed by God because that is biblical (in the Psalms and elsewhere). They didn’t know that it was so early that it had no detectable signs. They didn’t know about DNA, etc.

*
In other words, Mary would have had to think about it and speculate, just as Duns Scotus later did. Whether she actually worked all that out, we simply don’t know. But in any event, she didn’t have to for it to be true. It’s interesting to think about, but has absolutely no bearing on whether the doctrine is true or not. If I don’t know how my stomach and intestines and colon and kidneys and liver digest and filter food, it doesn’t follow that they aren’t doing so in my body. They are what they are and they do what they do, regardless of my state of knowledge about their workings.

*
For that matter, surely the church fathers had a different understanding of conception and the moment of conception, than we do, thanks to modern gynecology and related disciplines.

*
Yes they did, because of the primitive state of biology and reproductive biology. So for centuries they held to Mary being actually sinless, but not freed from original sin. Some may perhaps have thought (I don’t recall examples) that her sanctification began in the womb, analogous to Jeremiah, John the Baptist, etc. Freedom from actual sin is the kernel of the more developed doctrine of freedom from original sin (taking it back to her conception rather than her birth), which was first probably fully understood by Blessed Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308). Since Hays had no understanding of development of doctrine at all, and rejected it in his ignorance, all of this would be gibberish to him. He thought that every doctrine emerged from the pages of the Bible whole and entire, and incapable of any further development. Hence he stated that Chalcedonian Christology was lower than that of the Bible.
*

*
It means that the kernel (actual sinlessness based on fittingness as the Mother of God) was there from the beginning: indeed in Luke 1:28 and that it was developed over many centuries as the Immaculate Conception, to be declared as a dogma at the highest level in 1854. Catholics actually believe that pious Christians can ponder spiritual things, even for many centuries and come to deeper understandings of them, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
*

Is it not far more likely that this belief evolved through multiple stages of theological speculation?
*

Yes, it went through a long process, but it consistently developed rather than evolved (like a dinosaur to a mammal or suchlike) into something totally other than what it was from the beginning.

*