Today our sisters and brothers in the Roman Communion celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It is the dogma of their Church that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without taint of original sin on this day by St. Anne.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a most interesting document. You see, it uses something akin to Walther's theological method of adducing the weightier evidence first (Scripture), and then the less weighty (Liturgy, fathers, councils, etc.). So when we come to Mary's immaculate conception, we have these words:
"Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the immaculate conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in *****1854*****: The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the mercy of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin." (491)
What I find striking here is the admission that the teaching is not ancient ("through the centuries") and the insistence that her redemption from the womb consists of her being immune to all stain of original sin - a teaching that we can date as dogma as late as 1854, which every Roman Christian is called upon to believe as infallible dogma - for the pope spoke this ex cathedra.
Now, many a Lutheran would be utterly shocked to hear Luther's take on the whole question (that Mary was indeed conceived with original sin, but that the Holy Spirit did a clean up job on her in Anne's womb so that she was preserved from all actual sin throughout her life - don't ask me where, but it's in the St. Louis [German] Edition of Luther's works - a sermon on the Conception of Mary). Shoot, many Lutherans start to squirm when pastors refer to the Blessed Virgin as our own Symbols do: "sanctissima" - "most holy."
Yet, what troubles me about the Roman dogma of the immaculate conception is how it appears to contradict the clear teaching that our Lord alone was without sin, that He alone lived in an unbroken yes to the Father not only with his conscious acts, but with every fibre of his being. Luther's position at least allowed for the fact that Mary struggled with sin the same as all of us, and by God's merciful grace was successful in overcoming it, but the bitter root of sin remained in her and needed forgiveness. She had sinful passions that had to be fought against.
The Roman doctrine sets up TWO people untouched by the sin of Adam. What's worse: Rome also insists that this MUST be believed; Luther never insisted that anyone buy his theory (which he hijacked lock, stock, and barrel from St. Thomas Aquinas, I believe). Nor, I believe, it is fair to say has the Eastern Church ever proclaimed it a dogma that must be believed by all Christians that the most Blessed Virgin was conceived without sin. St. John Chrysostom certainly didn't believe such!
17 comments:
And if I am not mistaken, Bernard of Clairvaux was the strongest critic of the teaching, along with Anselm, Bonaventure, and as you mention, Aquinas.
[a side question: Not long ago I ran across a used copy, which I purchased, of The Christian Year: Days and Seasons of the Church (Muhlenberg Press, 1956) by Edward Horn III. I know this is a bit dated, though not too out-dated, but are you familiar with this work? It looks like a decent historical guide. I hope I haven't asked you this recently. I'll be embarassed if so!]
Rome also insists that this MUST be believed
That's the problem, isn't it?
I yield to no man in my devotion to the Blessed Virgin; but it's not propositional truth about the Virgin that saves. It's absolute, existential trust in and reliance upon the God-Man Jesus Christ that saves. Mariology that brings the reality of the Incarnation into sharp focus is the stuff of dogma. Nothing else is.
The question about Mariological dogma is not Is it true?. The question about Mariological dogma is, if you deny this, are you denying Who Jesus is? (That is why Theotokos is the Virgin's noblest title.) Any teaching about the Virgin that has no particular implications about Christology can never be a matter of dogma -- even if it is absolutely true.
Christians have always honored the Blessed Virgin as panagia -- "all-holy". But we are not saved by her all-holiness, but by the same grace from which her holiness comes. The difficulty (my difficulty, anyway) with the Immaculate Conception is that is makes the all-holiness of the Virgin (which we ascribe to her simply as an expression of our love for her) into a saving truth, which it is not.
Brian,
A VERY good book. I've looked it over in the libarary before.
Chris,
Agreed 100%.
Chris,
One more thing. Piepkorn's words on this:
"It is when these pious opinions are elevated to the status of dogmas which must be believed under pain of eternal condemnation that we declare this kind of constraint - rather than the opinions themselves - to be antichristian and diabolical."
So he preached from the pulpit of Concordia Seminary one year, many moons ago.
Lately, in looking at these beliefs which other church bodies hold to, I am inclined to ask the question of a 4 year old "Why?" But I really think that is an important question to ask to gain insight into why it is that these beliefs must be held. Frankly, it comes down to the two fundamental beliefs in our anthropology. Apology II does a great job of dissecting this... somewhat ad nauseum, but nonetheless, if you understand Roman anthropology, then it makes sense why May actually HAD to be born immaculately in order for Christ to be who He was. For Lutherans, this isn't an issue, because the anthropology is different and does not set up some pseudo-gnostic (read Platonic) idea of what the self is and where vices and virtues play into one's being.
Curious, that same philosophical 'passing in the night' is what Avery Dulles describes as needing to be clarified in the process of refining the Joint Declaration.
I was always uncomfortable with the distinction Roman Catholicism makes between original sin (ie a deprivation of original justice), and the sin nature. For me, saying that Mary was not conceived in original sin, is saying that she did not possess the sin nature (or a nature prone to death, and thus like Christ had no need to die). So why celebrate her dormition every year? For me, the tradition that Mary did in fact die, indicates that she possess the sin nature. In addition to the plethora of Fathers who speak of Christ abolishing the sin nature in His own person. But I know Rome doesn't think of it, that way.
The short version of how I was taught this doctrine in the pre Vatican II days is: Mary was saved by Christ her Son the same as we, but in a different way, since had she not been preserved from original sin from conception she would have passed that on to her son, he would have been born in sin as we are and thus unable to be our Savior. She was as it were redeemed in advance.
Further, that this doctrine was not formally defined until 1854 is not only not an objection but illustrates some points about Christ's Church. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, The Origin of the Species in 1859. The world at this time was making its arguments that everyone is immaculately conceived, that everyone is conceived without sin. As a product of evolution rather than creation, and perfectable through the historical inevitability of class struggle rather than sanctification and/or justification, there is no need for a Saviour from sin. So God reserved the formal definition of the Immaculate Conception until this time, to remind the world that only one person entered the world without the corruption of sin, and even that was by the grace of Christ. Which also illustrates why Christ gave to his church the authority to make these pronouncements after the Apostolic Age.
It's a good, clean, consistent argument. Which is not to say it's true. What it is to say is this: if you want to witness against it, two things are essential. One, no literate Roman Catholic will have an ear for the idea that this somehow lessens Jesus' role, since Mary's Immaculate Conception is from him and she is saved by her Son too. Two, no literate Roman Catholic will have an ear for the idea that the lateness of the definition and its extra Biblical source is an objection, since in the RC reading of Scripture Jesus gave these powers to His church and Scripture itself is subject to them.
So it comes down to the usual culprit -- what is the source of authority in the church anyway? If the Bible was not meant to be the sole rule of faith then it is to no avail to argue that something isn't in the Bible. In that context also, what is the nature of the Office of the Keys? Unless we back up a step and address these issues first, what we have to say about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is bound to fail, and will only re-inforce the literate Roman Catholic's idea that objections to the church's doctrine have their source in the doctrine not being understood in the first place.
That the Church can articulate dogmas not contained in the Apostolic deposit is something unfathomable for us Lutherans. The Spirit leads us into all truth - but this truth is not something more or different than what the holy Apostles wrote for us. John Behr, the Orthodox professor from St. Vlad's, has written about St. Irenaeus' approach to tradition:
"Irenaeus' appeal to tradition is thus fundamentally different to that of his opponents. While they appealed to tradition precisely for that which was not in the Scripture, or for principles which would legitimize their interpretation of Scripture, Irenaeus, in his appeal to tradition, was not appealing to anything else that was not also in Scripture. Thus Irenaeus can appeal to tradition, to establish his case, and at the same time maintain that Scripture cannot be understood except on the basis of Scripture itself, using its own hypothesis and canon." (The Way to Nicea I, p. 45)
As a Lutheran Christian I very much resonate to Fr. Behr's take on Irenaeus. It sounds from your words as though Roman Catholics in their approach to this question come close to that of Irenaeus' opponents in positing alongside of Scripture an additional source from which the apostolic deposit can be discerned, which supplements or even over-rides the witness of the Sacred Scriptures.
By the way, my comments above were not to denigrate but to agree with your very perceptive comment about the importance of tracing the underlying issue of authority in the Church.
You're quite right. The way I was taught this (btw, to clarify, I'm, 56, was raised in the pre Vatican II church, lost all faith after the Council, continued that way for 20 years, met and married an LCMS woman who had a very similar experience with Seminex, and after about a year of instruction professed the faith if the Evangelical Lutheran Church ten years ago almost to the day)goes like this:
There is one Revelation, and it comes to us from the Apostles in two forms, written (Scripture) and oral (Apostolic Tradition). Therefore it is a fundamental mistake to speak as the Protestants do about other sources, additional sources, etc. Their mistake is to identify only one of the two sources of Revelation as authentic. It's all Tradition, some of which is written and some of which isn't. Sola Scriptura then assigns a role to Scripture God does not intend, which accounts for the dozens of churches saying they only teach what the Bible teaches. They deny both the full Apostolic deposit and the legitimate means established to interpret it, the Magisterium (teaching authority of the Church).
So yes, the real work isn't about this or that doctrine, but what is the true source of doctrine. Before there is agreement on what is authoritative and what is not, doctrinal differences cannot really be approached. The arguments I as Lutheran would advance against what I as a Roman Catholic held depend upon a prior change in understanding of what is the source of doctrinal and ecclesiastical authority.
In the same work by Behr, and on the same page, he quotes Florovsky that "Tradition" for the early Church is simply "Scripture rightly understood."
I think the Churches of the Augsburg Confession would be quite at home with such an understanding of tradition, for surely that is what their Symbols claim to be: just Scripture rightly understood.
Your personal history is fascinating. Can you tell me more about how the council brought about your disillusionment with Rome?
It wasn't just with Rome. Actually it does relate to the matter of authority in the Church. So that this doesn't get too lengthy, let me start with that. Believing as I did what I wrote above, the other churches appeared to me as simply what of the Catholic Faith they didn't dispute mixed with some person's ideas about the rest. Therefore they were no answer. When after the Council, and whatever the Council's intent, it seemed that what we had formerly upheld we either no longer upheld or else considered it one of several permissible options, it seemed to me that the gates of hell had indeed finally prevailed, meaning the whole thing was wrong -- not just the brave new church and its liturgy fashioned at the Council but what went before too, therefore Christianity was nothing more than another Jewish misunderstanding about Messiah that happened to catch on with the Gentiles who didn't have a clue about Messiah anyway. To borrow a phrase, we must look for another. So I lost faith in Christianity of any kind, not just Rome. In back of that though was the idea that no other church could actually be valid, since they were all bits and pieces of Catholicism combined with whatever reformer's axe to grind. In short, the whole matter of what is authority in the church was what made it for me a loss of faith not just in that church but in Christianity in any version.
And what brought about the return to the Church?
LCMS, that's what! I went to college in one of the hotbeds of historical critical method and liturgical "renewal" which in charity let's not name. Everyone's eyes were on Seminex, hoping for the forces of light to overcome the dark, repressive, oppressive, patriarchal etc bad guys. But unlike us, they didn't. LCMS was the one Christian denomination for which I retained any respect whatever, as all the other churches fell in, in true wannabe nature, with the whole Vatican II thing. Then Nancy comes along. Raised LCMS, much like me her response to those times was to say, bye, call me if you ever figure out what you believe. But when we married, we resolved that we could not let our religious burn outs to be passed along to children. So we set about resolving them. We had been married by an LCMS pastor, and I called every LCMS parish around us, and one WELS one. (Growing up in Minnesota, the word was among RCs in the 50s they're just like LCMS only moreso, so I included them.) We settled on the WELS parish, and during the instruction I hauled out a book I had bought years earlier and never read -- Three Treatises, the Augsburg Press edition. Making my way through the Babylonian Captivity, when I came to his treatment of the Eucharist, I thought here is the most truly catholic expostion of the Eucharist I had ever read, simply and clearly stating what my former church had hemmed and hawed and stammered to say. The pastor saw this and gave me a copy of the Tappert edition of The Book of Concord. Long story short, as I went through it, it became clearer and clearer that Vatican II wasn't the problem, the problem was much earlier and the Council was only the next step in that process. It also became clear that what these guys were presenting was nothing less than what I thought had been lost -- the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith! The promises had been kept, we really don't have to look for another. So while I am a convert ecclesiastically speaking, really I haven't converted to anything. The Holy Spirit showed me the real catholic faith. I was Catholic, now I'm catholic. How about that!
As a PS, I am now LCMS too.
What a beautiful testimony! Too cool. Thank you for sharing that!!!
You're welcome. My second WELS pastor said once he thought growing up in Minnesota was God preparing me to be a Lutheran, since though not being German it seemed everyone else was and I picked up enough German to lapse into it when ranting against the non confessional forces using the name Lutheran. Not sure to what extent he was joking!
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