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From: seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna (S.M.) Watson)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: What WAS the immaculate conception
Message-ID: <May.14.02.11.19.1993.25177@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 14 May 93 06:11:21 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
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Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

In article <May.9.05.39.52.1993.27456@athos.rutgers.edu> jhpb@sarto.budd-lake.nj.us (Joseph H. Buehler) writes:
[referring to Mary]
>She was immaculately conceived, and so never subject to Original Sin,
>but also never committed a personal sin in her whole life.  This was
>possible because of the special degree of grace granted to her by God.

I have quite a problem with the idea that Mary never committed a sin.
Was Mary fully human?  If it is possible for God to miraculously make 
a person free of original sin, and free of committing sin their whole
life, then what is the purpose of the Incarnation of Jesus?  Why can't
God just repeat the miracle done for Mary to make all the rest of us
sinless, without the need for repentance and salvation and all that?

I don't particularly object to the idea of the assumption, or the
perpetual virginity (both of which I regard as Catholic dogma about which
I will agree to disagree with my Catholic brothers and sisters in
Christ), and I even believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, but this
concept of Mary's sinlessness seems to me to be at odds with the
rest of Christian doctrine as I understand it.

==
Seanna Watson   Bell-Northern Research,       | Pray that at the end of living,
(seanna@bnr.ca) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada       | Of philosophies and creeds,
                                              | God will find his people busy
Opinion, what opinions? Oh *these* opinions.  | Planting trees and sowing seeds.
No, they're not BNR's, they're mine.          |
I knew I'd left them somewhere.               |  --Fred Kaan
