Re: Catholic heresy (for the record)
Roger, you couldn't refute my explanation of Tradition so you jump topic to Atonement, then spew the same anti-Catholic misunderstanding of the relationship between scripture and tradition. Catholics don't define scripture with tradition.
"Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, sacred Tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was
entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit..
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I went into detail on the biblical use of "entrusted" in a post explaining Apostolic Succession, you should scroll back and read it. The apostles were not "entrusted" with the New Testament.
Whether Mary died a physical death or she was raptured when alive; Catholics are not bound to either view, so you should find out what Catholics really believe instead of forming opinions based on ignorance and prejudice. Anti-Catholic sources, and there are legions of them, are 99% lies.
I asked for your understanding of grace. I only talk about Mary when Catholics make wild and foolish claims about her. It is about Christ not Mary. Mary is not what Catholic tradition makes her to be.
Another anti-Catholic lie. How would you like it if I made up lies about what you believe?
I asked for your understanding of grace.
The great Baptist Greek scholar A.T. Robertson exhibits a Protestant perspective, but is objective and fair-minded, in commenting on this verse as follows:
"Highly favoured" (kecharitomene). Perfect passive participle of charitoo and means endowed with grace (charis), enriched with grace as in Ephesians. 1:6, . . . The Vulgate gratiae plena "is right, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast received'; wrong, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast to bestow'" (Plummer).
(Robertson, II, 13)Kecharitomene has to do with God’s grace, as it is derived from the Greek root, charis (literally, "grace"). Thus, in the KJV, charis is translated "grace" 129 out of the 150 times that it appears. Greek scholar Marvin Vincent noted that even Wycliffe and Tyndale (no enthusiastic supporters of the Catholic Church) both rendered kecharitomene in Luke 1:28 as "full of grace" and that the literal meaning was "endued with grace" (Vincent, I, 259).
Likewise, well-known Protestant linguist W.E. Vine, defines it as "to endue with Divine favour or grace" (Vine, II, 171). All these men (except Wycliffe, who probably would have been, had he lived in the 16th century or after it) are Protestants, and so cannot be accused of Catholic translation bias. Even a severe critic of Catholicism like James White can’t avoid the fact that kecharitomene (however translated) cannot be divorced from the notion of grace, and stated that the term referred to "divine favor, that is, God’s grace" (White, 201).
Of course, Catholics agree that Mary has received grace. This is assumed in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception: it was a grace from God which could not possibly have had anything to do with Mary's personal merit, since it was granted by God at the moment of her conception, to preserve her from original sin (as appropriate for the one who would bear God Incarnate in her very body).
The Catholic argument hinges upon the meaning of kecharitomene. For Mary this signifies a state granted to her, in which she enjoys an extraordinary fullness of grace. Charis often refers to a power or ability which God grants in order to overcome sin (and this is how we interpret Luke 1:28). This sense is a biblical one, as Greek scholar Gerhard Kittel points out:
Grace is the basis of justification and is also manifested in it ([Rom.] 5:20-21). Hence grace is in some sense a state (5:2), although one is always called into it (Gal. 1:6), and it is always a gift on which one has no claim. Grace is sufficient (1 Cor. 1:29) . . . The work of grace in overcoming sin displays its power (Rom. 5:20-21) . . .
(Kittel, 1304-1305)
Protestant linguist W.E. Vine concurs that charis can mean "a state of grace, e.g., Rom. 5:2; 1 Pet. 5:12; 2 Pet. 3:18" (Vine, II, 170). One can construct a strong biblical argument from analogy, for Mary's sinlessness. For St. Paul, grace (charis) is the antithesis and "conqueror" of sin (emphases added in the following verses):
Romans 6:14: "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." (cf. Rom 5:17,20-21, 2 Cor 1:12, 2 Timothy 1:9)
We are saved by grace, and grace alone:
Ephesians 2:8-10: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God - not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (cf. Acts 15:11, Rom 3:24, 11:5, Eph 2:5, Titus 2:11, 3:7, 1 Pet 1:10)
Thus, the biblical argument outlined above proceeds as follows:
1. Grace saves us.
2. Grace gives us the power to be holy and righteous and without sin.
Therefore, for a person to be full of grace is both to be saved and to be completely, exceptionally holy. It's a "zero-sum game": the more grace one has, the less sin. One might look at grace as water, and sin as the air in an empty glass (us). When you pour in the water (grace), the sin (air) is displaced. A full glass of water, therefore, contains no air (see also, similar zero-sum game concepts in 1 John 1:7,9; 3:6,9; 5:18). To be full of grace is to be devoid of sin. Thus we might re-apply the above two propositions:
1. To be full of the grace that saves is surely to be saved.
2. To be full of the grace that gives us the power to be holy, righteous, and without sin is to be fully without sin, by that same grace.
A deductive, biblical argument for the Immaculate Conception, with premises derived directly from Scripture, might look like this:
1. The Bible teaches that we are saved by God's grace.
2. To be "full of" God's grace, then, is to be saved.
3. Therefore, Mary is saved (Luke 1:28).
4. The Bible teaches that we need God's grace to live a holy life, free from sin.
5. To be "full of" God's grace is thus to be so holy that one is sinless.
6. Therefore, Mary is holy and sinless.
7. The essence of the Immaculate Conception is sinlessness.
8. Therefore, the Immaculate Conception, in its essence, can be directly deduced from Scripture.The only way out of the logic would be to deny one of the two premises, and hold either that grace does not save or that grace is not that power which enables one to be sinless and holy. It is highly unlikely that any Evangelical Protestant would take such a position, so the argument is a very strong one, because it proceeds upon their own premises.
In this fashion, the essence of the Immaculate Conception (i.e., the sinlessness of Mary) is proven from biblical principles and doctrines accepted by every orthodox Protestant. Certainly all mainstream Christians agree that grace is required both for salvation and to overcome sin. So in a sense my argument is only one of degree, deduced (almost by common sense, I would say) from notions that all Christians hold in common.
One possible quibble might be about
when God applied this grace to Mary. We know (from Luke 1:28) that she had it as a young woman, at the Annunciation. Catholics believe that God gave her the grace at her conception so that she might avoid the original sin that she otherwise
would have inherited, being human. Therefore, by God's preventive grace, she was saved from falling into the pit of sin, rather than rescued after she had fallen in.
All of this follows straightforwardly from Luke 1:28 and the (primarily Pauline) exegesis of
charis elsewhere in the New Testament. It would be strange for a Protestant to underplay grace, when they are known for their constant emphasis on grace alone for salvation. (We Catholics fully agree with that; we merely deny the tenet of "faith alone," as contrary to the clear teaching of St. James and St. Paul.)
Protestants keep objecting that these Catholic beliefs are speculative; that is, that they go far beyond the biblical evidence. But once one delves deeply enough into Scripture and the meanings of the words of Scripture, they are not that speculative at all. Rather, it looks much more like Protestant theology has selectively trumpeted the power of grace when it applies to all the rest of us Christian believers, but downplayed it when it applies to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What we have, then, is not so much a matter of Catholics reading into Scripture, as Protestants, in effect, reading certain passages
out of Scripture altogether (that is, ignoring their strong implications), because they do not fit in with their preconceived notions (yet another instance of my general theme).
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Were Adam and Eve always sinners? I guess it's impossible for God to endow anyone sinless from conception, right Roger?
