Immaculate Conception: Bible & Patristics

PreambleAs per Con's Rules I will not offer a rebuttal to any of his arguments in this round. There obviously will be some overlap in arguments as there is a limited volume of material to address and Con has made preemptive attacks on what he figures my arguments will be.Additionally Con has imposed very rigid sources by only permitting 66 of the 73 books of the Bible and the pre-Nicene Church Fathers. It is ironically noted that the canon of the bible itself was not established within this time period, nor was the definition of original sin fully established.IntroductionThis doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was officially pronounced on December 8, 1854 by Pope Pius IX.Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." [1]Opening Arguments1. Honour thy father and thy mother - 4th commandment [2]This is the first commandment that does not deal with our relationship with God, but with our relationship with our fellow man. That God ordered it first is very telling that he places great emphasis on it. Is God to honour his earthly mother less than we, his creation, would honour our mother? It is within his power to singularly honour his mother with the gift of preventing her being stained with original sin. If he did not honour her in this specific manner it would show a deficiency in God's own ability to follow the very commandments he proscribes for us. This is of course illogical. If your mother was disfigured in some way, would you not do what you could to save her from this? Then why should God do less than you would for his earthly mother?2. Christ is the New Adam, Mary the New EveThe apostle Paul refers to Christ as the last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:45-47:45 So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. 47The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.St. Irenaeus (130-202 AD) [3] argued that Mary was the New Eve. [4] The virginal Eve disobeyed God, the Virginal Mary humbly submitted to God. As his summary to the argument Irenaeus wrote:And thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith. [4]Tertullian (160-225 AD) [5] also argued that Mary was the New Eve:Into a virgin's soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. But (it will be said) Eve did not at the devil's word conceive in her womb. Well, she at all events conceived; for the devil's word afterwards became as seed to her that she should conceive as an outcast, and bring forth in sorrow. Indeed she gave birth to a fratricidal devil; while Mary, on the contrary, bare one who was one day to securesalvation to Israel, His own brother after the flesh, and the murderer of Himself. God therefore sent down into the virgin's womb His Word, as the good Brother, who should blot out the memory of the evil brother. Hence it was necessary that Christ should come forth for the salvation of man, in that condition of flesh into which man had entered ever since his condemnation. [6]This concept is supported by Christ's own words. In Genesis when God is cursing the serpent he says:And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed... - Genesis 3:15However, there is only one woman then - Eve, thus implying the woman will be a new Eve. And the word enmity means that they are always in opposition. To always be in opposition means that they have never agreed. To never agree with Satan means to have no sin.How does Christ address his mother?And Jesus said to her,“Woman, what does this have to do with me?" - John 2:4He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” - John 2:26In those days, using woman was akin to calling her "Lady". It is both respectful [7], but full of a deeper theological meaning - being that Mary is the Woman of Genesis.3. Hypostatic UnionFollowing from the argument in 2 above: as the flesh of Eve was produced from Adam's rib, the flesh of the New Adam was Produced from the New Eve.From the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union of Christ in the Incarnation, Jesus' divine nature comes from being one of the three persons of the Trinity and his human nature comes from his human mother Mary. I believe this is a theological belief common to both the Presbyterian (Con) and Catholic (Pro) faiths. Now logically, if Jesus received his humanity from Mary, and He was without the stain of original sin, then Mary must have been absent of all sin (original or personal) otherwise she would have imparted this on stain onto Jesus.Now let's see if we can find support for this assertion elsewhere in the bible.And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” - Revelation 21:5“Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” - Matthew 9:17And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. - Mark 14:23-24By Jesus' own words in Revelations He is making creation new again. However, for this to happen according to Matthew 9:17 it was necessary to start over fresh. As Jesus institutes the new Covenant he transubstantiates wine into his blood (or as Con will argue uses wine as a symbol for his blood). If Jesus is to make all things new, then He must be the New Adam, in that the world needed "New Wine". If He is the New Wine then His flesh required a "New Wineskin" in the form of Mary, the New Eve. If Mary was a fresh wineskin that means that she was without sin like Christ and like Adam and Eve before the Fall.4. Full of GraceAnd the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. - Luke 1:28It should be noted that the angel did not address Mary by name, but instead by a title: full of grace. Thus there is great meaning to what the angel said, and it strongly implies something special, or a uniqueness.The Greek word used for full of grace is Kecharitomene. This word is found nowhere else in the bible.This is perfect past tense of charitoo and means endowed with grace (charis), enriched with grace as in Ephesians 1:6 . . . The Vulgate gratiae plena [full of grace] "is right, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast received'; wrong, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast to bestow' " (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, p. 14) [8]Now this is a very different word than echaritosen seen in Ephesians 1:6"to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved."Echaritosen signifies a momentary action, an action brought to pass... Whereas, Kecharitomene, the perfect passive participle, shows a completeness with a permanent result. Kecharitomene denotes continuance of a completed action. [8]Thus:"It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitomene as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." [8]Gregory Thaumaturgus (213 - 270 AD) [9] wrote in his "first Homily": [10]Today is Adam made anew...For she proved herself prudent truly in all things; neither has any woman been born like her in all generations...But in the holy Virgin alone is the fall of that (first mother) repaired...You have heard, O purest one, things of which even the choir of inspired men was never deemed worthy...Yet you alone, O purest virgin, are now made the recipient of things of which all these were kept in ignorance, and you learn the origin of them...Appropriately, therefore, did the angel say to Mary the holy virgin first of all, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with you; inasmuch as with her was laid up the full treasure of grace. For of all generations she alone has risen as a virgin pure in body and in spirit; and she alone bears Him who bears all things on His word...so also our Lord Jesus Christ proceeds, without fusion and without mutation, from the pure, and chaste, and undefiled, and holy Virgin Mary; perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, in all things equal to the Father, and in all things consubstantial with us, apart from sin.As you can see from the above homily excerpts, Bishop Thaumaturgus gave all the attributes of Mary being immaculately conceived. She was the purest one, undefiled, no other woman born like her in all generations, etc...Thus it is obvious that Kecharitomene is in perfect agreement with and reveals the immaculate conception.ConclusionIn this round I have shown a variety of reasons that the Immaculate conception is true and necessary according to scriptures and the Early Church Fathers.In the next round I will offer rebuttals to Con's arguments.[1] http://www.newadvent.org... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://www.newadvent.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org...[6] http://www.newadvent.org...[7] http://tinyurl.com...[8] http://www.philvaz.com...[9] http://en.wikipedia.org...[10] http://www.newadvent.org...P.S. Wishing Con a Blessed and Happy Easter!