1 of 1- ArmandoAlvarez
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Offline - Registered: 7/09/2015
- Posts: 48
Questions on the Immaculate Conception and Original Sin
For the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I thought I would talk to you guys about my questions on the doctrine and my questions on original sin, and hopefully work through them. I’m a Catholic, but there’s a lot of the teachings of the church I assume I don't fully understand because on their face, I don't see how they could be true. That’s part of the reason I’m trying to understand Scholasticism. I’d like to come to understand why I’m wrong.
I could sort of understand a doctrine of original sin that said with the sin of our first parents, our nature became corrupted so that the sanctifying grace that had been ours by nature could only be given to us by consenting to participate in the death of Christ through baptism. (That would lead me to question infant baptism, but let’s put that aside.) But then the Immaculate Conception throws a wrench in that understanding, since Mary was conceived without original sin before she could consent to baptism.
That leads me to question why the Father, who Christ describes as diligently searching for the sinner, as a woman sweeps her house for a lost coin or a shepherd seeking his lost sheep, wouldn’t also do that for all humanity. You may say, “God doesn’t owe his grace to anybody.” But one of the traditional responses to the question of what happens to babies that die without baptism is that they go to Hell. Which means, as far as I can tell, that every child who died before birth of natural causes was predestined to Hell, and I thought it was Catholic doctrine that predestining any being to Hell would be unjust-that’s part of why we don’t believe in predestination.
I guess you could get around this problem with limbo, but again, wouldn’t the Father as described by Christ in the parables of the Prodigal Son or the Lost Sheep seek out these souls and grant them immaculate conceptions as well? Of course, you also have the modern pronouncements from the popes that we must trust in the mercy of God and that we just can’t know what happens to unbaptized infants. But then I question what original sin or the Immaculate Conception would mean.
My temptation, as you can probably tell, is toward a Pelagian idea that there is no original sin and that Christ saves us from our personal sins. But I realize that this is heterodox and would like to be talked out of it.
Thanks.
Last edited by ArmandoAlvarez (12/08/2015 1:10 pm)
- Scott
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- From: Ohio, USA
- Registered: 6/26/2015
- Posts: 357
Re: Questions on the Immaculate Conception and Original Sin
ArmandoAlvarez wrote:
That leads me to question why the Father, who Christ describes as diligently searching for the sinner, as a woman sweeps her house for a lost coin or a shepherd seeking his lost sheep, wouldn’t also do that for all humanity. You may say, “God doesn’t owe his grace to anybody.” But one of the traditional responses to the question of what happens to babies that die without baptism is that they go to Hell.
Two brief points in partial reply:
1. According to St. Thomas, the means God chose for human salvation was not necessary in an absolute sense, since He could have chosen another means. But the way He did/does choose is especially fitting, and necessary in a relative sense since He has in fact chosen it. (Follow the link to see St. Thomas's reasons.) The point generalizes; from the fact that God chooses to do things one way, we can't conclude that no other way would have worked. As for the Blessed Mother, she could still have committed personal sins even though she was protected from the stain of original sin; she just didn't. (In theological terms, she was impeccable, but by grace, not by nature as Christ is; she still, as St. Thomas says, had a potentiality for sin even though God kept it from ever being actualized. One might legitimately ask why God doesn't give that kind of protection to everyone -- in which case see above -- but at any rate it's different from the protection involved in the Immaculate Conception.)
2. The Church does not teach that unbaptized infants go to hell (in the sense of eternal punishment, although the word used to be used in a broader sense to refer to the abode of the dead generally, a fact that causes some confusion among modern readers of older Church writings). Having died before reaching the age of reason, they haven't committed any personal sins so there's nothing for which they deserve punishment. (There's no such thing as "original guilt.") They go to an unmitigated happiness appropriate to their human nature and simply fail to enjoy the Beatific Vision.
Last edited by Scott (12/08/2015 4:06 pm)