The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception highlights that Mary is in no way the symbol of any supposed sufficiency; not in any way the symbol of some supposed sufficiency of human wisdom independent of Revelation, or of human freedom independent of grace, to secure the way, or to open the way, to the reception of the life of grace.52 Mary's obedience or right use of freedom depended on grace; in knowledge she depended on hearing the Word and keeping it, and the foundation of her whole life in grace was an act of God, which removed her from the inheritance of alienation from God, placing her in favour, grace, friendship with God, from the first moment of her existence, an act prior in time to any acts of her will or knowledge, prior in time to any act of virtue on her part-an act of God as necessary in her case as in ours, and no more in her power than in ours, differing in her case in that it was at the first moment of her existence whereas in ours it is typically at the time of baptism, or, in adults, at the time underlying (and usually with stages preceding) conversion or repentance.

This doctrine of the Immaculate Conception needs to be seen in the wider context of the doctrine of prevenient grace and the shared Eastern and Western understanding of Mary as first, with her consent, the mother of Christ, and, by her obedient consent, co-operator in the reversal of the effects of the disobedience of the first human beings, presented to us in Genesis in the account of Adam and Eve, so as to constitute a new Eve and mother of all the new living, that is of all the faithful. It is this context which makes the doctrine of Mary's being preserved entirely from sin, and with this the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, not just a theologoumenon but a matter for faith. As Augustine said, "He created the Mother he had chosen."53

This is why this doctrine is not on a par with medieval speculations about Jeremiah and John the Baptist. True, the early redemption of holy

many of the easier or more obvious refutations of Calvin, or easier or more obvious ways of dealing with the problem of evil.52 What is here involved is the state of sanctifying grace, in Scholastic textbooks, which is arguably the same as the grace of justification in Protestant preaching. One must distinguish between the fact of being in a state of grace, i.e. the fact of being justified-facts do not have degrees, they either obtain or do not obtainand sanctifying grace or the grace of justification in that sense in which they may have degrees i.e. as there can be degrees in a certain sense of holiness amongst those who are all in the same state in respect of being holy or set apart, whether we speak of the state of sanctifying grace or the state of being justified. In either case (sanctifying grace in one terminology and the grace of justification in another) what is involved is the work of the Holy Spirit making us just, placing us in friendship with God and developing this friendship.53 Augustine, Sermo 69, 3, 4 (PL 32, 442), trans. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church, 219.

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