The Traditional Belief

​

The belief that the Virgin Mary was perfectly spotless and sinless (not only in life or from birth but from the moment of conception) makes absolute sense, for it would be an embarrassment to the Son of God and would detract from His dignity to have a sinful mother. Thus, the sinlessness of Mary was firmly believed and taught by many of the Fathers.

​

St. Gregory Nazianzus (A.D. 329-389), Oration 38, XIII: "Conceived by the Virgin, who first in body and soul was purified by the Holy Ghost (for it was needful both that Childbearing should be honored, and that Virginity should receive a higher honor), He came forth then as God with that which He had assumed, One Person in two Natures, Flesh and Spirit, of which the latter deified the former."

​

St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430 ), On Nature and Grace, Ch. 42: "We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord..."

​

Lateran Council (A.D. 649), from Denzinger 256: "If anyone does not properly and truly confess in accord with the holy Fathers, that the holy Mother of God and ever Virgin and immaculate Mary in the earliest of the ages conceived of the Holy Spirit without seed, namely, God the Word Himself specifically and truly, who was born of God the Father before all ages, and that she incorruptibly bore [Him?], her virginity remaining indestructible even after His birth, let him be condemned." (Italics added.)

 

Some of the Fathers, such as St. Justin Martyr (in Dialogue with Trypho, Ch. 100) and St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, Book III, Ch. 22, Par. 4 last sentence), compared Mary to Eve before the Fall. This is because, before Eve yielded to the temptation of the devil, she was also immaculate and undefiled. Thus, the Fathers gave the idea that Mary was the "New Eve" or the "Second Eve" in the same way that St. Paul suggested that Christ was the "New Adam" or the "Second Adam" (Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:21–22,45).

​

Catholic Tradition also regards the Ark of the Covenant as a type or foreshadowing of Mary. Thus, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus calls her the Ark (in the First Homily on the Annunciation, second paragraph): "For the holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary." For just as the Ark was the sacred place where the word of God was kept, so Mary's virginal womb was to be the sanctuary of the Word. It is, therefore, fitting that in the Litany of Loreto, we address Mary with this title and say, "Ark of the Covenant, pray for us." But how does Mary's being the new Ark point to her Immaculate Conception? If one considers how highly God regarded the Ark, commanding that it be overlaid with the purest gold and made perfect in every detail (Ex 25:10–15); if one considers how He desired it to be spotless and without blemish so that His indignation is enkindled when anyone touches it (2 Kgs 6:6–7), it is easy to understand why He would want Mary, who would bear His Son, to be similarly immaculate and undefiled.

 

The Dilemma

 

Although the belief in the total sinlessness of Mary makes sense, it caused great difficulty for Catholic theologians because it seemed to contradict another revealed truth: that Christ is the "Savior of all men" (1 Tim 4:10) without exception, since in Adam "all have sinned" (Rom 5:12). Now, if Mary was sinless from the moment of conception, then it seemed that she would not need a Redeemer and would be an exception.

​

In the Middle Ages, the brightest theologians of the Church wrestled with this difficulty. How is it possible to reconcile the sinlessness of Mary, which is required by the dignity of the Son of God, of whom she would be the mother, with her being a descendant of Adam, in whom all have sinned? It is easy to understand that Christ was conceived without sin because He was not conceived by way of natural generation but supernaturally by the Holy Spirit. But the Virgin Mary's case was different. She was the natural child of human parents (Joachim and Anne) and, therefore, a descendant of Adam by natural descent. So, how could she be exempt from original sin?

​

During the Middle Ages, theologians of the East were steadfast in their belief that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin. But the philosophers and theologians of the West were divided on this issue. At first, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) also believed in the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. In his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book I, Distinction 44, Q. 1, Art. 3, Reply to #3, p. 1023, he said: "Purity is intensified by receding from its opposite; hence it is possible to find a creature than which nothing purer can be found in all created things if in it there is no contagion of sin, and such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin, who was immune from original and actual sin." But when he wrote his Summa Theologiae, he seemed to have changed his mind and said, "The Blessed Virgin did indeed contract original sin, but was cleansed therefrom before her birth from the womb" (ST, Part III, Q. 27, Art. 2, Reply to Obj. 2). He wrote the same idea in Compendium Theologiae, Ch. 224, and in his Exposition on the Angelic Salutation, Art. 1, sixth paragraph.

 

Since conception occurs when a soul is infused into the body (at which point a new person is said to exist), St. Thomas could not accept the idea that Mary was sanctified before conception because it would mean that sanctification happened before there was a human person to sanctify. In addition, he denied Mary's Immaculate Conception because he wanted to protect the dignity of Christ. He felt that if Mary was sinless when she was conceived, then she would no longer need a redeemer, and this would detract from Christ's dignity as Savior of all. Of course, St. Thomas was correct in his perception that, as a descendant of Adam, Mary also incurred the debt of original sin and, therefore, needed a Redeemer. However, he failed to distinguish between incurring the debt and actually contracting the stain of original sin. As a result, he made the mistake of denying the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception.

​

However, St. Thomas Aquinas was not alone in this error. St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and other theologians—who were also great devotees of the Blessed Virgin—committed the same mistake and denied the Immaculate Conception.

​

​

Resolution of the Problem

​

The idea of Mary's Immaculate Conception and her absolute purity is very strong in Catholic Tradition. There is abundant patristic evidence of this, as pointed out by the Catholic Encyclopedia. This was the reason why there was an urgent need to find a solution to this seemingly insoluble dilemma of reconciling Mary's sinlessness with Christ's role as the universal Redeemer of humankind.

 

The credit for solving the theological problem occasioned by Mary's Immaculate Conception goes to the Franciscan friar, Blessed John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), otherwise known as the Subtle Doctor (Doctor Subtilis). Although he was called "Doctor" by many historians, he was not a Doctor of the Church because he was never pronounced as such by any of the popes. But his often ingenious analysis of philosophical and theological problems earned him the honorary title of Subtle Doctor.