Woman and Serpent – Take 2 (5)

Dwight: As a debater, you naturally gravitate to the point where you think your case is the strongest and mine is the weakest. But this discussion is not only a chance to air our disagreements, but an attempt to find some agreement too. Maybe you should return to what you think of as the less problematic and more nearly catholic idea of Mary’s sinlessness, and consider for a moment why this is so alien to your spirituality. Does it reflect the influence of Protestant theology, which is pessimistic about any kind of graced human perfection in this life?

David: It is true that Evangelicals do not expect perfection in this life (nor think that anyone is entitled to claim it), but our confident hope of ultimate perfection in Christ (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:1-3) is the thing that keeps us going.

Dwight: Catholics cultivate the same hope, with the exception that we think perfection is possible in this life by God’s grace. This is why the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception glorifies the Lord, because at the heart of our belief in Mary’s sinlessness is the realization that the great grace she received was won by the death and resurrection of her Son. We praise God for what he has done in Mary’s life and see in her the perfection that is promised to each one of us by God’s amazing grace.

David: Making Mary a Christian “Everywoman” would neutralize most of our objections—but the Catholic view is that Mary is different: She “has already reached that perfection”, whereas “’the faithful still strive to conquer sin and increase in holiness.  And so they turn their eyes to Mary’”.

In running the Christian race, however, we do not “turn [our] eyes to Mary” but, instead, “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Heb. 12:2).  I think we deny Mary’s sinlessness not from pessimism but because evidence is lacking, and because the example and means of perfection that God has expressly and unmistakably given to us is none other than His Son, Jesus Christ.

Dwight: We look to Mary not as the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2) but as the first Christian in whom that redemption has been completed. We look to her therefore as an example of the promise in store for each of us. This wonderful possibility of perfection is the result of our intimate union with Christ. And what human could be more united with Christ than his mother? It is precisely because Mary and Jesus shared the same human nature that Mary was the first of the redeemed to share in the human wholeness that Christ died to win for us. Therefore, in the early church writings a high view of Mary is always linked with a correct view of Christ.

This is one of the things I find so inconsistent with the Evangelical position. You affirm the Christological doctrines defined and defended by the fourth century church, but you dispose of the Marian doctrines that were developed and defined at the same time. These doctrines about Mary were not snap-on extra attachments to the faith. They were understood to be integral to the all-important Christological definitions. Many examples can be given, but let’s take one. I know you would hail Athanasius, who championed the deity of Christ at the Council of Nicea, as a hero and defender of orthodoxy, but do you really then disagree with that monumental theologian when he writes, “the life of Mary, Mother of God, suffice[s] as an ideal of perfection and the form of the heavenly life.”? Continue Reading