Immaculate Conception: Reply To Gavin Ortlund

Including Analysis of Catholic Anathemas in Dogmatic Statements / Development of Doctrine and Mary

Photo credit: cover of my 2010 book, “The Catholic Mary”: Quite Contrary to the Bible?

Dr. Gavin Ortlund is a Reformed Baptist author, speaker, pastor, scholar, and apologist for the Christian faith. He has a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary in historical theology, and an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary. Gavin is the author of seven books as well as numerous academic and popular articles. For a list of publications, see his CV. He runs the very popular YouTube channel Truth Unites, which seeks to provide an “irenic” voice on theology, apologetics, and the Christian life. See also his website, Truth Unites and his blog.

In my opinion, he is currently the best and most influential popular-level Protestant apologist (see my high praise), who (especially) interacts with and offers thoughtful critiques of Catholic positions, from a refreshing ecumenical (not anti-Catholic), but nevertheless solidly Protestant perspective. That’s what I want to interact with, so I have issued many replies to Gavin and will continue to do so. I use RSV for all Bible passages unless otherwise specified.

All of my replies to Gavin are collected on the top of my Calvinism & General Protestantism web page in the section, “Replies to Reformed Baptist Gavin Ortlund.” Gavin’s words will be in blue.

This is my 3oth reply to his material. He has made just one lengthy and substantial reply to my critiques thus far. Why is that? His own explanation is simply lack of time. He wrote on my Facebook page on 17 April 2024: “Dave, thanks for engaging my stuff. People often ask to dialogue or engage and then are disappointed when I decline. Unfortunately I have to say no to most things. . . . if you are expecting regular responses, I’m afraid that is not realistic right now.” Again, on 23 August 2024 he commented on my Facebook page: “thanks for your engagement here. [I’m] grateful you give my work so much attention, and I only apologize [that] I’m not able to respond more. I think in the past I’ve explained a little bit about why.”

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This is my response to Gavin’s video, “The Immaculate Conception: A Protestant Evaluation” (8-30-23), which at the time of this writing has garnered 31,947 views and 1,742 comments. I think it deserves an in-depth Catholic reply, but likely far less people will ever see this, because we’re now in the age of videos. Oh well. Truth is truth, I say, and if I convince even one person, and educate many more than that, it’s well worth my time and effort.

The disciples turned the world upside down, preaching their gospel message, before the Internet, TV, radio, or mass production of books. Whatever written materials existed were not mass-produced, and few could afford them, and relatively few were literate. But eventually we had the written Bible, read by billions of people. So I think that writing isn’t obsolete yet, regardless of how many people still choose to read as opposed to (or in addition to) listening to lectures that almost always have far less substance content than corresponding written material.

0:13 [This is] basically a very brief overview of an explanation of a Protestant concern and position about the Immaculate Conception, then we can follow up and do more thorough work at some point

Understood.

1:56 I’m going to be focusing upon the Roman Catholic dogma

Good.
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3:08 the first thing that I want to say right out of the gate is that in allowing that Mary was not morally perfect, we are not dishonoring her. On the contrary, the biblical portrait of Mary is as a godly and courageous person, so we should speak well of her. We should seek to emulate her faith. She’s one of the great heroes of Christianity, so God bless her.

This is understood, too. It’s close to what I would have said about Mary as an evangelical Protestant. I thought she was the greatest created person who ever lived, but just not sinless or immaculate. I respond to this by simply appealing to the Bible and also sacred tradition. Somehow, a lot of Church fathers believed that she was without sin, and this developed over time to including her lack of original sin, as well, which could only have been God’s doing in a special miraculous act at her conception.

Gavin then objects to Catholic dogmatic statements about Mary including anathemas and statements about believing in them in order to be a Christian. He writes:

4:20 people soften anathemas today and make them nicer than they were, but nonetheless it’s still clear, however you cash that out in terms of its application, that this is an obligatory part of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church is making the Immaculate Conception of Mary an obligatory part of the Christian religion.

Ineffabilis Deus: Blessed Pope Pius IX’s proclamation of the dogma in 1854 indeed stated:

Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

I can see how that wouldn’t sit well with Protestants, but this is a biblical model, as I have written about: Bible on Authority to Anathematize & Excommunicate [August 2009]. St. Paul wrote, “even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8). See, for example, the article, “Anathema” in Easton’s Bible Dictionary. Our position on this also needs to be much better understood:

Anathemas of Trent & Excommunication: An Explanation [5-20-03, incorporating portions from 1996 and 1998; abridged on 7-30-18]

Do Catholics Excommunicate People to Hell? [2007]

Did Trent Anathematize All Protestants? + Dialogue on the Definition of “Christian” (Are Catholics Included?) [6-5-10]

Moreover, we’re not the only ones who do this. Protestants do, too, all the time. We have a multitude of extraordinarily dogmatic statements from Luther and Calvin, anathematizing all who disagree (fellow Protestants and Catholics alike) with their own judgments (on entirely arbitrary grounds). For example, Martin Luther wrote in July 1522:

I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you – or even an angel from heaven – to judge my teaching or to examine it. . . . I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3 ]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved – for it is God’s and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God’s. (Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So-Called, in Luther’s Works, Vol. 39; citation from pp. 248-249, my italics; see much more along these lines from Luther).

One of the classic expositions of Calvinism was that set out by the Synod of Dort (1618-1619). In its “Conclusion: Rejection of False Accusations,” the Synod declares, against Protestant Arminian Christians:

. . . the Synod earnestly warns the false accusers themselves to consider how heavy a judgment of God awaits those who give false testimony against so many churches and their confessions, trouble the consciences of the weak, and seek to prejudice the minds of many against the fellowship of true believers.

Note that this is entirely a dispute amongst Protestants. The great majority of Protestants today are Arminian, not Calvinist. They are all condemned by the rhetoric at Dort, and essentially read out of the Christian faith. Catholic dogmatic authority asserts that a person who rejects the Immaculate Conception has been “condemned by his own judgment” and has “suffered shipwreck in the faith.” Calvinist dogmatic authority asserts that people who reject predestination to hell of the reprobate and other tenets of five-point Calvinism (which multiple millions of Protestants reject), are “wicked, impure, and unstable” and do so “to their own ruin.” They are “false accusers” who will be subject to a “heavy judgment of God” if they continue in their ways (Article 6 of Dort).

What’s the difference? In both cases, a teaching which is disagreed with by many many different kinds of Christians is made obligatory on followers of the professed faith, under penalty of the shipwreck of their faith or souls. So why do we always hear about Catholic anathemas, but rarely or never about Protestant ones? There are millions of anti-Catholic Protestants (and not a few Orthodox ones, too) who believe that Catholics aren’t Christians at all, and hellbound, if they accept all that the Catholic Church teaches. How is that not at least as offensive or objectionable in principles as Catholic anathemas?
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Luther casually assumed that Protestant opponents of his like Zwingli, who denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist, were likely damned as a result. Luther and Calvin and Melanchthon approved of drowning Anabaptists as heretics and seditious persons because they believed in adult baptism. Thus they would have approved of Gavin Ortlund and James White (and myself, earlier in life) being executed. The early Protestants were extremely intolerant of each other, with many mutual anathemas exchanged. I could go on at great length about this, but I think my point of comparison and double standards is sufficiently established. If one wants to go after a specific aspect of Catholicism that also occurs in Protestantism, then the criticism ought to be fair and across the board, not cynically selective and one-sided, as if only Catholics ever do this.

So, to use Gavin’s own words, Calvinists made Calvinist soteriology “an obligatory part of the Christian religion”: on pain of being banished or losing one’s job as a pastor, etc. in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Luther made belief in the eucharistic Real Presence “an obligatory part of the Christian religion”: on pain of being read out of Christianity. Luther and Calvin made belief in infant baptism “an obligatory part of the Christian religion” on pain of losing one’s life by drowning: in mockery of believers’ adult baptism. Millions of anti-Catholics today require Catholics to believe like Protestants in many ways, as “an obligatory part of the Christian religion”: lest they be proclaimed out of the fold and damned and hellbound, as Pelagians, idolaters, etc., etc. (I’d love to have a dime for every time I’ve heard that myself).

In the Lutheran Apology of the Augsburg Confession, written in 1531 (Article XXIV: The Mass) it is stated:

In the papal realm the worship of Baal clings — namely, the abuse of the Mass . . . And it seems that this worship of Baal will endure together with the papal realm until Christ comes to judge and by the glory of his coming destroys the kingdom of Antichrist. Meanwhile all those who truly believe the Gospel should reject those wicked services invented against God’s command to obscure the glory of Christ and the righteousness of faith. (in The Book of Concord, translated and edited by Theodore Tappert, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House / Muhlenberg Press, 1959, 268)

Marvelously ecumenical, isn’t it? Goose and gander?

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4:48 Protestants in our conscience have a concern about this. The concern is, basically, you can’t change Christianity. It’s a revealed religion. If the apostles had never heard of it, you can’t add it later on, and we think that that’s what’s going on here. We think that this wasn’t something the apostles or Mary herself ever had the foggiest notion of even imagining.

This is another double standard. No apostle knew what the canon of the New Testament was. They didn’t have “the foggiest notion” of that because the Bible doesn’t teach it anywhere, and the NT wasn’t even completed till the late first century, after almost all of them were dead. The first Church father to list all 27 NT books in one place was St. Athanasius in 367: more than 330 years after the death of Jesus. This isn’t even arguable. It’s a fact. Protestant scholars Alister McGrath and Norman Geisler both state that essentially “no one” believed in Protestant “faith alone” soteriology until Martin Luther, almost 1500 years after Christ. No apostle had “the foggiest notion” about Luther’s and Melanchthon’s novel, invented soteriology from the 16th century. I would say the same about sola Scriptura. The patristic consensus was that clear. Luther basically invented sola Scriptura when backed into a corner in a debate in 1519.

No one fully understood trinitarianism until the 7th century AD: the fine points of it took many centuries to develop and understand, with the heresies, Monophysitism and Monothelitism appearing relatively late in history and having to be opposed (as Arianism and Sabellianism had been opposed earlier). But development of doctrine is not essential change or “evolution.” It builds upon what exists. What exists in the Bible — the “kernel” or “germ” of the Immaculate Conception — is the sinlessness of Mary (where? I will show that in due course). St. John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote about its development:

As to the antiquity of the doctrine. In the first ages original sin was not. formally spoken of in contrast to actual. In the fourth century, Pelagius denied it, and was refuted and denounced by St Augustine. Not till the time of St Augustine could the question be mooted precisely whether our Lady was without original sin or not. Up to his time, and after his time, it was usual to say or to imply that Mary had nothing to do with sin, in vague terms. The earliest Fathers, St Justin, St Irenaeus etc. contrast her with Eve, while they contrast our Lord with Adam. In doing this – 1. they, sometimes imply, sometimes insist upon, the point that Eve sinned when tried, and Mary did not sin when tried; and 2. they say that, by not sinning, Mary had a real part in the work of redemption, in a way in which no other creature had a share. This does not go so far as actually to pronounce that she had the grace of God from the first moment of her existence, and never was under the power of original sin, but by comparing her with Eve, who was created of course without original sin, and by giving her so high an office, it implies it. Next, shortly after St Augustine, the 3rd General Council was held against Nestorius, and declared Mary to be the Mother of God. From this time the language of the Fathers is very strong, though vague, about her immaculateness. In the time of Mahomet the precise doctrine seems to have been taught in the East, for I think he mentions it in the Koran. In the middle ages, when everything was subjected to rigid examination of a reasoning character, the question was raised whether the doctrine was consistent with the Blessed Virgin’s having a human father and mother – and serious objections were felt to it on this score. Men defined the words ’Immaculate Conception’ differently from what I have done above, and in consequence denied it. St Bernard and St Thomas, in this way, were opposed to it, and the Dominicans. A long controversy ensued and a hot one – it lasted many centuries. At length, in our time, it has been defined in that sense in which I have explained the words above – a sense, which St Bernard, St Thomas, and the Dominicans did not deny. The same controversy about the sense of a word had occurred in the instance of the first General Council at Nicaea. The Nicene Creed uses the word ’Consubstantial’ to protect the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity against Arius, which the great Council of Antioch some 70 years before had repudiated as a symbol of heresy. In like manner great Saints have repudiated the words ’Immaculate Conception,’ from taking them in a different sense from that which the Church has accepted and sanctioned. (Letters & Diaries, Vol. 22; To Lady Chatterton, 2 Oct. 1865)

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You will ask perhaps, ‘Why then was there so much controversy about the doctrine or about its definition?’ . . . I do not see any difficulty in the matter. From the beginning of the Church even good and holy men have got involved in controversies of words. . . . The devotion to her has gradually and slowly extended through the Church; the doctrine about her being always the same from the first. But the gradual growth of the devotion was a cause why that doctrine, in spite of its having been from the first, should have been but slowly recognised, slowly defined. . . . ‘The new devotion was first heard of in the ninth century.’ Suppose I say, ‘The new doctrine of our Lord’s immensity, contradicted by all the Ante-nicene Fathers, was first heard of in the creed of St Athanasius?’ or ‘The Filioque, protested against by the Orthodox Church to this day, was first heard of in the 7th Century?’ . . . we must recollect that there were at first mistakes among pious and holy men about the attributes of the Holy Spirit. . . . I fully grant that there is not that formal documentary evidence for the doctrine in question which there is for some other doctrines, but I maintain also that, from its character, it does not require it. (Letters & Diaries, Vol. 19; To Arthur Osborne Alleyne, 15 June 1860)

5:34 with the Immaculate Conception you can at least make a case for it inferentially from other things. So, for example, the typology with Mary and Eve. Mary is the new Eve; or with the Ark of the Covenant. Mary is the Ark of the Covenant or language throughout the church fathers of Mary as holy and pure and the model of virginity and so forth, especially spirals up in the 4th Century

True. And we can make a case from the meaning of the Greek in Luke 1:28 (the words of the angel to Mary at her Annunciation).

6:56 you have people saying Mary is a sinner and they’re saying it without any expectation of pushback, and it doesn’t occasion any controversy, and you get enough teachings like this, that does start to become more of a falsification of the idea

It’s true that many fathers thought that Mary sinned. The consensus is not virtually unanimous and overwhelming as in the case of, say, the Eucharist and baptism and the rule of faith and infused justification (Catholic soteriology) and many other things, but there was a strong consensus as to Mary’s sinlessness (free from actual sin). Some got it wrong and some got it right, which is true about a lot of topics and the Church fathers.

Gavin cites six Church fathers, saying that Mary sinned. This doesn’t disprove the doctrine. It only shows that the patristic consensus was less strong than for several other doctrines. Thus, there is no need for me to analyze all that because I concede the point in the first place, but then immediately note that it’s not decisive, anyway. Many other Church fathers affirmed her sinlessness, and there is a fairly strong biblical case to be made that she was sinless, which is consistent with her Immaculate Conception. The inspired Bible is what we all agree on. If a good case can be made there, then it meets these Protestant objections from certain Church fathers.

17:47 we all know people like Thomas Aquinas who rejected it

But his reasoning has to be understood. He wasn’t far away from it. See my article: Even Aquinas Can Be Wrong (Immaculate Conception) [5-10-24].

19:04 here is a doctrine that pretty clearly does not seem to be anywhere close to the apostles

In its fullness, it wasn’t (I agree), but neither were the canon of the NT, trinitarianism, etc. But the kernel is in the Bible, which means that it wasn’t totally foreign to the apostles, as I will shortly demonstrate. Gavin seems unaware of many of these arguments (beyond New Eve and Mary as the new ark), and since he has chosen not to interact with my critiques, he may very well continue to be in the dark, if indeed he isn’t familiar with those additional argument. And I think the biblical data is super-relevant to the question. It’s not merely a patristic / historical issue.

21:14 what is ultimately decisive for us is what is in the Holy Scripture, because we think that that is the uniquely infallible rule: the one that can’t err.

We agree that it can’t err. It’s what we have in common. This is why I make many biblical arguments for Mary’s Immaculate Conception (most supporting the kernel of sinlessness).

Now here are my many biblical arguments:

Blessed Virgin Mary & God’s Special Presence in Scripture [1994; from first draft of A Biblical Defense of Catholicism]
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“All Have Sinned” vs. a Sinless, Immaculate Mary? [1996; revised and posted at National Catholic Register on 12-11-17]

Luke 1:28 (“Full of Grace”) & Immaculate Conception [2004]

The Bible: Mary Was Without Sin [4-1-09]

Mary: Ark of the New Covenant (Biblical Evidences) [7-9-09]

Mary’s Immaculate Conception: A Biblical Argument [2010]

Annunciation: Was Mary Already Sublimely Graced? [10-8-11]

Scripture, Through an Angel, Reveals That Mary Was Sinless [National Catholic Register, 4-30-17]

Amazing Parallels Between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant [National Catholic Register, 2-13-18]

Biblical Support for Mary’s Immaculate Conception [National Catholic Register, 10-29-18]

Sinless(?) Joseph, John the Baptist, Anne, & the Incarnation [7-18-23]

Sinless Creatures in the Bible: Actual & Potential (Including a Listing of Many Biblical Passages About Sin, Holiness, Blamelessness, Righteousness, Godliness, Perfection, and Sanctity) [10-20-22; greatly expanded on 7-27-23]

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Photo credit: cover of my 2010 book, “The Catholic Mary”: Quite Contrary to the Bible? (see book and purchase information).

Summary: I respond to a video by Reformed Baptist apologist Gavin Ortlund, explaining why Protestants reject the Immaculate Conception of Mary. I discuss history and Scripture.