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 16^th 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 12^th 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 The Instructor

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.