that the Immaculate Conception entails the impossibility of Mary ever sinning:

This brings us to the so-called theological objection, claimed by some to be even more important. This objection arises from the truism that the Immaculate Conception would render Mary sinless, to the point of being impeccable. Therefore, it deprives her of her personal freedom, and renders her nature unlike ours. We may cheerfully agree the Immaculate Conception does render Mary impeccable from the first moment of her conception. But this does not mean her human nature is different from ours. .. . The so-called possibility of sinning is not a characteristic of freedom as such, viz., as a simple perfection. The possibility of offending God is but an index of limited freedom, not of freedom itself. The greater the impossibility of sinning, the greater the freedom.9

Prescinding from any thematic discussion of the torturously complicated issues involved in analyzing problems of grace and human freedom, suffice it to note that in this passage the author clearly maintains that the grace of the Immaculate Conception has as one of its consequences the perpetual sinlessness of Mary. Because of the Immaculate Conception, says Fr. Fehlner, Mary is incapable of "offending God." Now since sinning, or offending God, always consists at its root in some kind of privation, it would seem quite legitimate to formulate the same idea in positive terms: the Immaculate Conception causes Mary to always do whatever God wills that she do.

But then the natural conclusion to be drawn is that the Immaculate Conception is what causes Mary's fiat at the Annunciation. If the grace of the Immaculate Conception causes Mary not to fail in following God's will in every situation, then we can dispense with the double negative and state that it is the grace of the Immaculate Conception which causes Mary to follow God's will in every situation. Looking at the Annunciation situation then, in which Mary follows God's will by giving her fiat, adherence to Fehlner's principles compels the further assertion that it is the Immaculate Conception which causes Mary to give her assent to the angel's message.

What characterizes the views considered in this section is not simply

9 Peter M. Fehlner, "The Virgin Mother's Predestination and Immaculate Conception," in Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons, ed. Mark I. Miravalle (Goleta, CA: Seat of Wisdom, 2007), 213-76, at 243-44.

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What Came First? The Sequence of God’s Grace in the Life of the Blessed Mother

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