Friday, April 13, 2007

Our Lady In Scotus’ Theory


The Immaculata was predestined par excellence. In fact, she was chosen "in Him, before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4) to be holy without blemish in His sight and love.

How united is Mary to this predestination?

In the definition of the Immaculate Conception, Ineffabilis Deus (1854), Pius IX states that the Incarnation and Mary were eternally willed in one and the same eternal decree.
This means that like Jesus, Mary is also eternally willed and in that sense, has always been part of the eternal plan, even before her conception. This is important because the Mother gives birth to the Son.

According to the Franciscan thesis: The Virgin was predestined eternally to be the beloved Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son, and the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

The Franciscan thesis thus teaches that God preordained the Immaculata before any consideration of sin, otherwise one must maintain that the Immaculate one is only the result of human sin and its remedy.

To go a step further:
What does Absolute primacy have to do with Marian mediation?
-God placed the mediation of Jesus Christ at the center of creation.
-Because God wills in a most orderly fashion, it follows that immediately under Christ the Head, God places the Immaculate one. Mary is therefore the most perfect creature (after Christ of course) because of her Immaculate Conception
-Mary shares in the role of the One mediator in subordination, but as the fountain and channel of all graces.

St. Bernard said:
Mary is called the neck of the Mystical Body through which flows all the graces of Christ, therefore God willed that grace and glory would flow through Jesus the mediator and through Mary the Mediatrix. And this was part of God’s perfect predestination.

In other words, regardless of sin, God always intended grace to flow to humanity from Jesus and Mary. After the Fall, this grace becomes redemptive and therefore the Incarnation becomes redemptive. And this only adds to the Glory. But it is not the foundation.
Bonaventure says:
"Our Lady is the Mediatrix between us and Christ, as Christ is the Mediator between us and God."

In terms of Redemption:
Sin leads to a new dimension of the Incarnation. God’s plan from the beginning is immutable. His eternal plan did not change with the advent of sin. Rather it took on a new dimension, allowing for nature to be graced all the more! God extends his mercy and wills that the Mediator and Mediatrix remove the barrier of sin. Jesus and Mary then also became the Redeemer and subordinately, the Coredemptrix of Grace.

Originally, the Incarnation would not be redemptive, but it becomes redemptive after the Fall (after there is a need for redemption).

The Mediator and Mediatrix ( who were always destined to be so) also become the Redeemer and Coredemptrix because of sin. Therefore the plan of God in its essence is not altered. Jesus and Mary are predestined to maximum grace and glory. Now in case one may suggest that the Incarnation is higher than Calvary, it is vital to point out that any authentic Scotist on this point says that after the Fall, all graces of the sacrifice come from Jesus and Mary on Calvary. The Passion of Christ and com-passion of Mary becomes the center of authentic Christian spirituality. As Dr. Miravalle says, "In the Divine Mercy chaplet, we say ‘for the sake of thy sorrowful Passion’ not ‘for the sake of thy joyous Incarnation.’" Scotus says that God sees the Fall from all eternity, thus the greater glory of Christ becoming Redeemer and Mary as subordinate Coredemptrix, after they initially were predestined from all eternity as Mediator and Mediatrix. This is the meaning of "O felix culpa!"

To say that the greatest good is contingent on the fall of a lesser creature is to say that because the Blessed Mother is so connected to the Incarnation, we wouldn’t have her if man didn’t sin.

This isn’t the way God orders his plan of creation.

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