Why the Immaculate Conception is a false teaching
To make it simple the Immaculate Conception is a teaching of
the Catholic Church that Mary the mother of Jesus was born outside of original
sin and to go with it lived a sinless
life. This is a teaching that was rejected by most of the Catholic Church until
the 16th century went against official Catholic church teaching
until it become an official teaching
until 1854.
The problem with the Immaculate Conception is that it has no
backing from the Bible and in fact contradicts Jesus own teachings as well as
the rest of the New Testament.
Both Catholics and non Catholics believe that any major
doctrine must be clearly backed up by scripture. The article in the Catholic
Encyclopedia about the Immaculate Conception says. "No direct or
categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from
Scripture." The real problem is
that it is not even hinted at in the Scripture.
Catholics also look at support from the early church. Edward
O'Connor, compiling a massive defense of the Immaculate Conception,
acknowledged that the idea was not even a tradition of the early church and
that the first signs of this teach began in the 12th century.
A Handbook of the Catholic Faith a book has the
Imprimatur (official endorsement) of the Roman Church states
“This point of doctrine [the immaculate conception] is not expressly dealt with
anywhere in the Bible, nor was it preached by the Apostles, and for many
centuries it was not mentioned at all by the Church.” (Many centuries is over
12 centuries that was not mentioned once.)
To sum it up
The Bible teaches that every person except Jesus sinned. The
official position of the church for 18 centuries was that every person except
Jesus sinned.
To believe that the Immaculate Conception is true you have
to believe
- God lied
- The Bible lies every where it says all men are sinners
- The apostles lied
- The Church lied
- The hundreds of popes lied
I choose to believe
- The Bible tells the truth
- The apostles told the truth
- The church told the truth
- And on this issue even the popes told the truth.
What does the Bible have to say about the Immaculate Conception?
Actually the Bible is not silent on this teaching. In fact
it teaches the exact opposite. The Bible teaches that the only sinless person
was Jesus. In many places it says that every person is a sinner and the only
exception it provides for is Jesus.
Here are some of the passages from the Bible that say every
person has sinned. (I do not mention the many Old Testament verses that say
that all men have sinned, I am only sharing the places in the Bible that come
after Mary was born.)
Romans 3:9-12 - What then? Are we Jews any
better off? No, not at all; for I have already
charged that all
men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is
written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks
for God.
All have turned aside, together they have gone
wrong; no one does good, not even one."
Romans 5:12 - Therefore as sin came into the world
through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned
Romans 11:32 - For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.
Mark 10:18/Luke 18:19 - And Jesus said to him,
"Why do you call me good? No one is
good but God alone.
Ephesians 2:3 - Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the
desires of body and mind, and so we were
by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
1Jn 1:8 If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1Jn 1:10 If we say we
have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For
our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God.
Heb 4:15 For we have
not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who
in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
1Jn 3:5 You know that
he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
What did the early church have to say?
The fact that Jesus was sinless is one of the most talked
about subjects in the writings of the early church. I only mention here some of
the places where they say that Jesus was
the only one who was sinless. Another major topic of the early church
writers is that all men have sinned. In fact several talk about it being
impossible for man to not sin. I found nearly a hundred places were the early
church said that all men sinned. And this was just in the first 3 hundred years
of the church. There are hundreds more over the next 900 years.
Justin Martyr Dialogue of Justin
Chap
CX “that, together with the most
righteous, and only spotless and sinless
Christ, we are taken away out of the earth.”
Clement of Alexandria
Book 1 chap 2
“He is wholly free from human passions; wherefore also He alone is
judge, because He alone is sinless.”
Book 3 Chap XII “For this Word of whom we speak alone is sinless”
Hippolytus
Fragment 2 “The God of all
things therefore became truly, according to the Scriptures, without conversion,
sinless man, and that in a manner known to Himself alone, as He is the natural
Artificer of things which are above our comprehension.”
The Divine Liturgy of James, the Holy Apostle and
Brother of the Lord. XXXVI Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and
Saviour Jesus Christ: for All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong;
no one does good, not even one."
Tertullian A Treatise on the Soul Chap. XLI “For God
alone is without sin; and the only man
without sin is Christ”. A few lines later he says “for no soul is with out
sin.
All of this documentation proves
To believe that the Immaculate Conception is true you have
to believe
- God lied
- The Bible lies every where it says all men are sinners
- The apostles lied
- The Church lied (for 1800 years)
- Hundreds of popes lied
I choose to believe
- The Bible tells the truth
- The apostles told the truth
- The church told the truth
- And on this issue even the popes told the truth.
All scripture quotations are from the RSV a version accepted
by the Catholic Church.
