Mike in Michigan has posted another video (above), updating us on his investigations into the Catholic faith.
He also asks a question about the Immaculate Conception. This was something that I had to research and think about when I was becoming Catholic as well, and I certainly understand the concern for someone from a Protestant background.
He also adds a little bit in the combox down yonder in which he indicates that he understands that Romans 3:23 (the "all have sinned" passage) doesn’t mean absolutely all or it would include Jesus, which it obviously doesn’t. This is quite correct, and I’ve often pointed out that later on in Romans Paul refers to a time when Esau (not our Esau) and Jacob were still int he womb and had not yet done anything good or bad, indicating that unborn children are also an exception to the "all have sinned" principle.
The question then is not whether there are exceptions but whether Mary counts as an exception and why.
For Catholics there are two sources by which the faith is passed down to us from the apostles: Scripture and Tradition. The Magisterium (the Church’s teaching authority), while it is not itself a source of the faith, is able to make rulings on what the content of Scripture and Tradition are. That’s how we got the canon of Scripture for example: The Magisterium identified certain works as genuine Scripture. It is also capable of determining which Traditions are authentic and which are not.
When it comes to the Immaculate Conception, this doctrine is not taught explicitly in Scripture. It is thus like the Trinity, which is not taught explicitly , either. You have to go around to a variety of different verses in order to build up the evidence that shows that God is a Trinity. It’s not stated directly. The Immaculate Conception is also like the Trinity in that it took a while for the concepts and vocabulary needed to express the doctrine to develop. You can’t talk about the Trinity if the word "Trinity" hasn’t been coined yet, and you can’t talk about the Immaculate Conception–Mary’s freedom from all stain of original sin–if the term "original sin" has not yet been coined.
It thus took a while for Christian theology to develop the concepts and vocabulary needed to articulate the idea of Mary’s unique holiness.
That holiness is something that Christians have always had an insight of–as the writings of the Church Fathers show–but it took a while to figure out the precise nature and extent of this unique gift.
There are indications of it in Scripture itself, the clearest echo of the doctrine being in the Annunciation in Luke 1, where the Angel Gabriel refers to Mary with the Greek word "kecharitomene," which is commonly translated "full of grace," but more literally would be "one who has been graced." This word draws on aspects of Greek grammar that indicate that Mary has, in the past, received God’s grace and that this has continuing effects at the present time.
The question is: How far back in the past was she graced and what are the specific effects? As Christians reflected on this and on the writings of the Church Fathers, it was discerned that–because of her unique role in the history of salvation–Mary was graced at the first moment of her existence (her conception) with the effect that she was prevented from contracting any stain of original sin.
Part of the conceptual background for this was the realization of Mary’s role as the New or Second Eve, something that the Church Fathers are explicit about very early. It was discerned that, just as God started humanity with a first Adam and Eve, he started redeemed humanity with a New Adam and a New Eve. Thus St. Paul refers to Jesus’ role as the New Adam, and the Church Fathers identify Mary as the New Eve. Thus, just as Eve cooperated with Adam in bringing sin to the world (by giving him the forbidden fruit), Mary cooperated with Jesus in bringing salvation to the world (by serving as his mother).
Similarly, just as both the first Adam and Eve were sinless from their conceptions, the new Adam and Eve were sinless from their conceptions. The difference is that while the first pair fell from grace, the second remained faithful.
A basis for the Immaculate Conception can thus be discerned in Mary’s role as the New Eve.
YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT THAT HERE.
It seems to me that another basis for the Immaculate Conception can be seen in the fact that Mary is the Prototypical Christian. She is the first to say yes to Jesus, which she agrees to become his mother, and this makes her a model of all Christians. In keeping with this, God chose to make her an image of Christian destiny by giving her the gifts that one day all faithful Christians will receive. Specifically, he grave her the gift of being immaculate and he assumed her to be with hi Son. This mirrors the fact that faithful Christians will one day be rendered just as immaculate–just as free of sin and its stain–as Mary, and they will also be caught up to be with Christ (only at the end of the world, not at an earlier point as in Rapture teaching). By giving Mary–the Prototypical Christian–these gifts early, God made her an icon of the destiny of the Christian.
Thus the Catechism refers to Mary as "the most excellent fruit of redemption" (CCC 508) because the gifts of Christ’s redemption were given to her in an extraordinary way.
There is also a basis in the fact that she is simply Christ’s mother. It seems to me that God would be likely to pick one of two kinds of women to be his mother: an extraordinarily holy one or an extraordinarily unholy one. For example, if Christ had chosen to be born of a prostitute, it could make the point that God can reach fallen humanity even in the worst of its condition. However, we know that he didn’t choose to do that, which points us to the other option: an extraordinarily holy woman.
There are no limits to God’s ability to grant holiness to someone, and thus if he chooses to make someone extraordinarily holy, he has the power to make the person totally holy. That would be the kind of mother that would be fitting for the Son of God, and thus that’s the kind of mother that God chose to make Mary.
These themes rumble through the Tradition that is found in the writings of the early Church Fathers and later theologians, and eventually the matter was brought to the point that the Magisterium of the Church infallibly defined that this–like the Trinity–is, indeed, an authentic Tradition from the apostles, even if the apostles wouldn’t have used the vocabulary we use today to express the insight.
Hope this helps!