Article

Irish Theological Quarterly

Daughter Zion and the

76(3) 238­–258
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
Advent of Salvation: Mary in co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0021140011405725
Eschatological Perspective itq.sagepub.com

Henry L. Novello
The Flinders University of South Australia

Abstract
The article reinterprets the content of the dogma of the immaculate conception in light of an
eschatological portrayal of original sin, the dynamic nature of the holiness of Mary as Daughter
Zion,  and a theology of redemption based on the wondrous exchange of natures in Christ.
Drawing on Irenean anthropology, it is proposed that the immaculate conception confers upon
Mary the perfect ‘image’ of God, while the assumption corresponds to her perfect ‘likeness’ to
God, for only when Mary is taken up into heaven does she attain to the fullness of ‘objective’
redemption in her son. Since Mary is not exempt from mortality, the eschatological dimension of
her life is not fully realized until she dies and shares in her son’s glorious resurrection.

Keywords
image, Irenaeus, likeness, Rahner, redemption, resurrection

T his article revisits the Marian dogmas of the immaculate conception and the assump-
tion of Mary in light of an eschatological interpretation of original sin.1 The dogma
of the assumption of Mary into heaven is not especially problematic in an eschatologi-
cal perspective, but the same cannot be said for the dogma of the immaculate concep-
tion, according to which Mary ‘from the first moment of her conception was preserved
immune from all stain of original sin by a unique grace and privilege from almighty God,

1 See Henry Novello, ‘Lack of Personal, Social and Cosmic Integration: Original Sin from an
Eschatological Perspective,’ Pacifica 22 (2009): 171–197.

Corresponding author:
Henry L. Novello, 51 Harbrow Grove, Seacombe Gardens 5047, South Australia, Australia.
Email: henry.novello@flinders.edu.au
Novello 239

in view of the merits of Christ Jesus the Saviour.’2 The language used by the framers of
the definition reveals that they had ‘a fairly static vision of human origins and human life
and a substantially biological understanding of the transmission of original sin.’3 Much
theological thinking today, however, takes place within an evolutionary view of the world;
thus what Ineffabilis Deus defined as a dogma of Catholic faith will have to be expressed
in a language more compatible with the way people think in the modern world.4
From the standpoint of the concept of evolving ‘nature,’ Mary’s holiness will have to
be considered in truly developmental and historical terms as a real involvement with this
world, which, moreover, is situated within the context of the history of the Jewish people
and their expectations in respect of the coming of the Messiah.5 It will certainly be helpful,
therefore, to reflect on Mary as the ‘daughter of Zion’ (Isa 62:11; Zeph 3:14) inasmuch as
‘she incorporates the whole of the preparation of Israel for him who was to come.’6 This
understanding of Mary’s vocation—in which her Jewish faith plays an integral part in her
giving birth to the Saviour—is expressed concisely in the Patristic axiom that Mary con-
ceived Christ spiritually in her heart before she conceived him bodily in her womb (prius
mente quam ventre).7 The story of the annunciation reveals that Mary is addressed in a
singular way by God’s election and covenant promise, but while her office is certainly
unique in that she will give birth to the Son of the Most High, it is, nonetheless, not with-
out analogy to other roles and offices in the biblical narrative of the history of salvation.
One of the consequences of situating Mary squarely within the community of Jewish
faith and expectation is that it serves to expose the shortcomings of the moral view of
redemption that underpins the 1854 definition ‘in view of the merits of Christ Jesus our
Saviour.’ The notion of sharing in the ‘merits’ of Christ, which is applied retroactively to
Mary’s immaculate conception, indicates that Anselm’s satisfaction theory was employed
in the definition.8 The God of Israel, however, is quite different from Anselm’s God, for

2 Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer, eds., Enchiridion symbolorum: Definitionum

et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, ed. Peter Hünermann, 37th ed. (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 1991), 2803 (hereafter DS). The definition of Pius IX is contained in the
bull Ineffabilis Deus of 1854. Pius IX raised to a dogma of faith a conviction and teaching
about Mary’s holiness that had a long tradition behind it.
3 Donal Flanagan, The Theology of Mary, Theology Today Series 30 (Dublin: Mercier, 1976), 27.
4 See Gaudium et spes, 5.
5 Gabriel Daly has pointed out that when we take ‘nature’ to mean essence or substance, neither
grace nor sin can change the nature of the human being; but when ‘nature’ is taken in a non-
essentialist or evolving sense, then nature does change. Both morality and physical evolution
depend on this possibility of change (Gabriel Daly, Creation and Redemption [Dublin: Gill &
Macmillan, 1988], 132).
6 Flanagan, The Theology of Mary, 20.
7 Ibid., 28. The same point was fully acknowledged by no less than Martin Luther. See David
S. Yeago, ‘The Presence of Mary in the Mystery of the Church,’ in Mary, Mother of God,
ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004),
58–77, at 66–67.
8 It is important to recognize that, in its historical and theological context, there are two positive
achievements of Anselm’s theology of redemption. Firstly, he discredited the ‘ransom theory’
by asserting that the payment was made by Christ to God, not to the devil. Secondly, his
theory does not contain legalistic and punitive elements. Anselm does not consider Christ to be
240 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

the former is a living God who hears the groaning of the people, knows their condition,
and remembers the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Ex 2:23–25). Yet
the covenant people often displayed hardness of heart toward the living God, which led
the prophets Jeremiah (see 31:31–34) and Ezekiel (see 36:26–28) to envision an escha-
tological event in which God would make it come about that the Torah would be written
upon their hearts. In these prophecies regarding a ‘new heart’ and a ‘new covenant,’ God
is portrayed as working, as it were, from both sides of the relationship, ‘not only to
address Israel but also to assure Israel’s response.’9 Redemption here is conceived as
God putting himself into the human condition so as to transform the human heart and
assure its ascent to love of God.10 This perspective is precisely what the Christian doc-
trine of the incarnation of the Word expresses in a radical fashion. Thanks to a rethinking
of the theology of redemption, the incarnation no longer tends to be thought of quantita-
tively as merits of Christ won for us on the cross, but qualitatively as being incorporated
into Christ through the indwelling spirit (see Rom 8:14–16; Gal 4:6–7), and thus as shar-
ing in the divine life (see 2 Pet 1:4) and attaining a ‘higher nature.’ Theology today has
rediscovered the view that all grace from the beginning of creation is grace given in view
of Christ who is the eschaton or ‘new creation’ in person, so that the incarnation of the
Word emerges as the purpose of creation itself.
In addition to the problems posed by a largely static conception of Mary’s holiness and
a theology of redemption based upon Anselm’s satisfaction theory, another problem lies
with the rationale involved in linking the immaculate conception to the incarnation of the
Word of God. To the Latin mind, given that it is her flesh that is united to God in the incar-
nation, Mary’s body could not have been contaminated with Adam’s sin.11 It is the whole
of Mary’s humanity, body and soul, which tends to be regarded as sanctified in the immacu­
late conception, in preparation for her predestined role as Mother of God (theotokos).12

punished by the father for our sin; rather, Christ pays the debt of justice or honour due to God.
Anselm considers the alternative of either punishment or satisfaction and decides on the latter
as most fitting for expressing God’s love for us, whereas the Reformers posited both punish-
ment and satisfaction (see John McIntyre, St. Anselm and His Critics [Edinburgh: Oliver &
Boyd, 1954], 56–116; Richard W. Southern, St. Anselm and His Biographer [Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1963], 97–121). Anselm stresses that it is by sharing in Christ’s mer-
its that we are redeemed, and that mercy is manifested by the father who says to the sinner,
‘Receive my son and present him instead of yourself,’ and by the son who says, ‘Take me and
redeem yourself’ (Anselm, Cur Deus Homo 2.20).
  9 Walter Brueggemann, The Land (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 141. In such a perspective, it
is of note that the person’s free response to God’s address is seen as the work of grace, so that
the state of being redeemed contains the element of human co-operation with God.
10 Anselm’s theory does portray God as working to ensure an adequate response of the sinner
to the divine address; however, God’s work is conceived in terms of the son’s merits being
transferred to the sinner.
11 In Ineffabilis Deus it is explicitly stated that it was for the sake of her son’s dignity that Mary
received the unique grace of being conceived free of original sin (DS 2801).
12 Sarah Jane Boss offers a comprehensive review of the debates in the history of Catholic the-
ology (Sarah Jane Boss, Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the
Virgin Mary [London: Cassell, 2000], 123–155).
Novello 241

But a problem arises with this position when redemption is thought of in terms of sharing,
for Christ must know the fallen human condition from within in order to elevate humanity
to the glorious level of intimate communion with the living God. Paul expresses this guid-
ing idea metaphorically in terms of wealth and poverty (see 2 Cor 8:9), so that we are led
to understand that ‘Christ lives out his life on earth under the conditions of the fall.’13
Many are reluctant to admit that the son assumed a fallen human nature for the sake of our
redemption (see 2 Cor 5:21; Rom 8:3; Heb 4:15), not only for the reason that this is per-
ceived as undermining his divinity and holiness, but because this would, in turn, imply
that it is not possible to admit the absence of original sin in Mary from whom the Word
received his flesh. Of course, everything hinges on how one understands original sin. For
Orthodoxy, for instance, where the terms of reference are different from Catholic theol-
ogy, no problem presents itself in the assertion that the son assumed a fallen human nature,
because what is inherited from the sin of Adam is not the taint of guilt, but mortality. Both
Christ and Mary are without personal sin, yet both are seen as living under the conditions
of fallen humanity.14 And if we adopt an eschatological interpretation of original sin that
conceives of the human condition as lack of personal, social, and cosmic integration,
again the terms of reference are different from the traditional portrayal of the doctrine,
where a biological transmission of inherited sin and guilt was in view.
The purpose of this article is to critically reflect on the mystery of Mary in eschato-
logical perspective. The first part will discuss the significance of the history of the great
women of Israel and the appearance of Mary as the flowering of that history of barren
fruitfulness. This will serve not merely to paint a picture of Mary as the ‘link’ figure
between the old covenant and the new, but to shed light on the concrete historical nature
of her holiness as preparation for the coming of the Messiah. The second part will then
present a theology of redemption based on the exchange of natures in the person of
Christ and will consider the consequences of this theology for the interpretation of the
immaculate conception of Mary. The thought of Irenaeus and Rahner will feature in
the discussion, for they both offer the possibility of conceiving the ‘anticipatory’ or

13 Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 1995),
73–76, at 75. Sergius Bulkatov has criticized the Latin doctrine of the immaculate concep-
tion for rendering Mary ‘incapable of imparting to her divine Son the authentic manhood of
the old Adam, with its need of redemption’ (Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and
Devotion [Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1985], part 2, 130). On the view that original
sin is equated with mortality, Orthodox Christians are not able to admit its absence in Mary,
yet they assert that Mary knew no personal sin, that she was sanctified in her soul from the
very moment of her conception.
14 While Catholic theology holds that Mary was not subject to original sin by the grace of the
immaculate conception, this does not necessarily mean that Mary was exempt from all the
consequences of Adam’s fall: she is subject, for example, to suffering and death. Christ was
not subject to original sin, given his divine identity, yet he voluntarily took upon himself
fallen humanity in order to redeem it; thus, Mary cannot be thought of as totally exempt from
the consequences of Adam’s sin. See, for example, Edward Schillebeeckx, Mary, Mother of
the Redemption, trans. N. D. Smith (London: Sheed & Ward, 1964), 62–64, 96.
242 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

‘preservative’ redemption of Mary in ways more intelligible to the modern world and its
notion of development. The third and final section will discuss how four theses illumi-
nate our understanding of the privileges of Mary. It is in the context of the fourth thesis
that the assumption of Mary will be critically discussed and conclusions will be drawn
regarding the findings of this article.

Mary, Daughter Zion, and the Dynamic Nature of

Holiness
In his meditations on Mary, Ratzinger reminds us that the image of Mary in the
New Testament is ‘woven entirely of Old Testament threads’ and that the unity of the two
Testaments ‘guarantees the integrity of the doctrines of creation and grace.’15 We must
not lose sight of the fact that the spirit that comes upon Mary is the same spirit that hov-
ers over the abyss in the creation story (see Gen 1:2) and that brings forth being out of
nothingness. The reversal of values expressed in Hannah’s song (1 Sam 2:1–10) is also
clearly echoed in Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), where the humble and lowly are
exalted while the mighty and haughty are put down from their thrones. In the discussion
below it will become apparent that Mary represents the culmination of the history of the
great women of Israel, and into that history is woven the theology of Daughter Zion in
which the prophets announced the mystery of the covenant and God’s steadfast love for
Israel.16 The discussion will also consider the question of whether Mary’s holiness entails
her complete sanctification from the moment of her conception, or whether it is more
plausible to hold that Mary grew in holiness so that by the time of the annunciation she
was hailed as ‘full of grace.’
(a) When we reflect upon the history of promises in Jewish scripture, the patriarchs of
Israel stand out as the bearers of that history. Yet mothers play a significant role in that
history: Sarah-Hagar, Rachel-Leah, and Hannah-Penina are those pairs of women in
whom the extraordinary aspect of the promises becomes apparent.17 In each of these cases
where fertility and infertility stand in opposition, the normal mode of thinking is reversed:
the fertile ones are relegated to the realm of the ordinary and are no longer considered the
truly blessed; while the infertile ones, who are now elevated to the sphere of the extraor-
dinary, are seen as truly blessed because they are subject to the creative power of God’s
word of promise. This reversal of values—from which a theology of grace was developed—
is captured beautifully in the song of Hannah which is echoed in Mary’s Magnificat, and

15 Joseph Ratzinger, Daughter Zion: Meditations on the Church’s Marian Belief, trans. John M.
McDermott (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983), 12, 33. Jaroslav Pelikan makes the same point as
Ratzinger when he laments the tragically forgotten bond between Mary and the Jewish tradi-
tion (see Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture
[London: Yale University, 1996], 23–36).
16 The brief discussion will be based largely upon strands of Jewish tradition that are identified
in the meditations of Ratzinger (Ratzinger, Daughter Zion, 9–29).
17 Ibid., 18.
Novello 243

it also features prominently in the sermon on the Mount. In this history of women who
experience earthly infertility as true fertility is to be found also the basis of a theology of
virginity.18 The angel Gabriel’s statement to Mary, ‘For with God nothing will be impos-
sible’ (Luke 1:37), reflects this understanding of the creative power of God’s word that is
made manifest in situations where fertility is not a possibility open to humanity.
Towards the end of the Old Testament canon we come across the woman-saviour fig-
ures of Esther and Judith as representatives of suffering Jewry. Judith is a widow who
represents the apparently forlorn cause of God. When, however, the chosen people tri-
umph over their enemies (the Assyrians), they sing the praises of Judith and go to Jerusalem
for a solemn thanksgiving. The Book of Esther also tells of the deliverance of Jewry, in
Persia this time, by the actions of Esther who is a harem-wife at the Persian court, where
she has become queen and uses her position to save the Jews from extermination. Both
Esther and Judith are representative of a defeated Israel that has been dishonoured among
the nations, yet, at the same time, both are depicted as saviour figures. This is because they
embody the spiritual hope that their powerless state will prove to be the very locus for the
revelation of God’s redemptive power. As in the case of the infertile woman, the power-
less women of Israel represent the people of God; the history of these women ‘becomes
the theology of God’s people and, at the same time, the theology of the covenant.’19
In light of the foregoing discussion, the underlying motif in Luke’s portrait of the
interaction between the angel Gabriel and the young Mary surfaces: ‘she is in person the
true Zion, toward whom hopes have yearned throughout all the devastations of history.’20
The promise expressed in Isaiah 54:1, where Israel is likened to the childless and barren
woman to whom is promised a vast multitude of children, is now fulfilled for Luke in the
concrete reality of the Virgin Mary who will conceive the Son of the Most High by the
power of the spirit. As ‘Daughter of Zion’ (Zeph 3:14; Zech 9:9), Mary represents Israel
in eschatological perspective, for she embodies the realization of Israel’s deepest hope in
respect of the advent of the Lord, who brings final salvation for Israel and the world.21
The annunciation passage is continuous with earlier occasions when God accomplished
the impossible, yet the thrust of the announcement is about the future as well as the past,
so that Mary becomes the ‘link’ figure between the Old and New Covenants.22 The
uniqueness of Mary among the holy ones of Israel is apparent, says Robert Jenson, in that
her womb now becomes the container of the Ark of the Covenant:

It is of course the heart of Christian faith that God’s presence in Israel is gathered up and
concentrated in Immanuel, God with us, in this one Israelite’s presence in Israel: he is in person
the Temple’s shekhina, and the Word spoken by all the prophets, and the Torah. And if that is
so, then the space delineated by Israel to accommodate the presence of God is finally reduced

18 Ibid., 19.
19 Ibid., 21.
20 Ibid., 43.
21 See David S. Yeago, ‘The Presence of Mary in the Mystery of the Church,’ 69; Sarah Jane
Boss, Empress and Handmaid, 218.
22 Beverly Roberts Gaventa, ‘Nothing Will be Impossible with God,’ in Braaten and Jenson,
Mary, Mother of God, 19–35, at 29.
244 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

to and expanded to Mary’s womb, the container of Immanuel. We must note the singularity of
Mary’s dogmatic title [theotokos]: she is not one in a series of God’s mothers, she simply is the
Mother.23

Mary, to conclude, is continuous with the history of the great women of Israel in whom
God accomplished the impossible, yet her unique or singular place is secured by the fact
that of no other can it be said that she, or he, contains the uncontainable God. But Mary
was not randomly chosen to be the Mother of God, for her response to Gabriel reveals a
woman of exceptional Jewish faith and humility, a woman who collaborates with God
unreservedly for the much anticipated salvation of Israel. In Luke’s portrait of Mary we
see a woman who enjoys a loving immediacy to God, which suggests that she was elected
and consecrated specially for her mission from the first instant of her conception.
(b) The dogma of the immaculate conception holds that Mary was already chosen for
her office and consecrated by God from the first instant of her conception. This motif of
God choosing and consecrating specific persons even before they are born, i.e. predestin-
ing, is, of course, not foreign to the prophetic literature of Israel (see Jer 1:5) or Christian
scripture (see Gal 1:15; Eph 1:4–5). But the dogma goes beyond these other cases in
claiming that only Mary in her vocation was preserved from inheriting the negative con-
sequences of Adam’s sin, which enabled her to live a life of utmost integrity in loving
relationship with God in preparation for the incarnation of the Word. An inherent problem
with the language of the dogma, however, as stated earlier, is that it suggests a view of
holiness which is not congruent with the evidence of Scripture, where holiness cannot be
thought ‘apart’ from the concrete situation of human existence and God as historical force
who ensures that history remains essentially open to the new, to qualitatively better things
to come. As Donal Flanagan has rightly pointed out, the meaning of the dogma can no
longer be thought of as Mary having been spared the trials, tribulations, and challenges of
daily life. ‘People today find a Mary so immaculately conceived a totally incredible fig-
ure. Such grace is neither inspiring nor in any way supportive for their Christian faith and
living.’24 Grace is always grace given ‘in the fray’ of human existence in this world, and
Mary’s life should not be treated as an exception to this understanding.
When Mary is reflected upon as Daughter Zion and woven into the history of the great
woman of Israel of which she was the flowering, the result is that her holiness is recog-
nized as an ‘involved holiness’ or a ‘holiness of preparation’ that was not closed-off from
her everyday life in Galilee.25 This means that she was born into Israel’s history of fidelity
and infidelity, that she had to undergo personal development in a world marked by sin, that
she was confronted by human failure and misery, that she was not exempt from the human

23 Robert Jenson, ‘A Space for God,’ in Braaten and Jenson, Mary, Mother of God, 49–57, at 55.
Jenson goes on to say that when we ask Mary, as mother of God, to pray for us, we invoke
all of God’s history with Israel at once, which is contained in her person (‘be it done unto me
according to your will’).
24 Flanagan, The Theology of Mary, 27.
25 Ibid., 28; Schillebeeckx, Mary, Mother of the Redemption, 72.
Novello 245

condition and grew in understanding of her son, and was subjected to suffering and death.26
It was precisely in this concrete historical situation that Mary was called to open herself
radically to God’s love and allow her person to be progressively taken over by collaborat-
ing with grace. ‘Mary was by her grace called to open herself more and more to God’s love
so as to grow towards his coming.’27 It is by interpreting the privilege of the immaculate
conception in terms of a growing in grace that we can appreciate the patristic saying that
Mary conceived Christ in her heart before she conceived him in her womb.28 On a rela-
tional understanding of sin as abuse of freedom and distortion of the person’s relationship
to God, Mary’s freedom to grow in holiness points to her capacity to remain resolutely
God-centred in a world that groans under the burden of sin, anxiety, and death (see Rom
8:18–25). The discussion in the next section reinforces this concrete understanding of
holiness as a growing in grace, and God as historical force who brings the process of his-
tory to eschatological completion and perfection in the person of Christ, the Risen One.

Salvation as Sharing: Rethinking the Immaculate

Conception
One of the main points contained in the definition of the dogma of the immaculate con-
ception is that Mary received this unique grace and privilege ‘in view of the merits of
Christ.’ This point is of paramount importance because it does not exempt Mary from the
need to be redeemed by her son through an anticipatory or preservative redemption. The
language of merit indicates that Anselm’s satisfaction theory is adopted in the definition,
but what becomes of the dogma of the immaculate conception if redemption is conceived
in terms other than those employed in Anselm’s theory of satisfaction? Another traditional
model, which is especially pronounced in Eastern theology but also employed in Western
theology and adopted by Vatican II, is that of deification (theosis) or a becoming like God
by sharing in the divine nature (see 2 Pet 1:4).29 This model of salvation is often expressed
26 I am of the opinion that Mary was not spared physical death. Christ himself was not spared
death and it is through his redemptive death that death in the full sense is conquered. It is sim-
ply untenable, to my mind, to interpret the assumption of Mary in terms of her being taken up
straight into heaven without having undergone physical death. Mary shares necessarily with
humanity some of the consequences of Adam’s sin—i.e. suffering and mortality—so that she
is able to impart to her son the humanity of the old Adam with its need of redemption, under-
stood as the supernatural end of permanent union with God.
27 Flanagan, The Theology of Mary, 28. Mary’s growing in grace means that while her fun-
damental attitude is one of radical receptivity to God, this does not mean that she has full
understanding of God’s purposes in her son. In Mark 3:31–34, for instance, Mary appears
‘outside’ the company of Jesus; in Luke 2:41–51, Mary lacks understanding of her son and
ponders things in her heart right up to the time of Pentecost (see Luke 2:19; Acts 1:14). Just
as Jesus ‘increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God’ (Luke 2:52), so too Mary
increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God.
28 Mary’s growing in grace points to the progressive nature of her ‘subjective’ redemption; that
is, the love that God bestows upon Mary is freely reciprocated in her love of God. This process
of subjective redemption culminates in Mary’s death as total dispossession of herself in love of
God, and her sharing in Christ’s resurrection as the perfect reality of ‘objective’ redemption.
29 See Dei verbum, 2; Gaudium et spes, 22.
246 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

in terms of the principle of the admirable exchange of natures in the person of Christ: the
son participates in the human condition so that fallen humanity might share in the glory of
the divine life as its final end. In what follows, I will discuss the theology of Irenaeus as
an eminent example of salvation as sharing, so as to propose a view of the fall and redemp-
tion that is eschatological and compatible with a developmental view of the world.
(a) Irenaeus contends that it is not plausible to hold that Adam enjoyed a state of com-
plete perfection before his fall because that which is created ‘must receive both beginning,
and middle, and addition, and increase’; thus, the human being is seen as receiving ‘advance-
ment and increase towards God.’30 On the basis of the fundamental difference between the
uncreated and the created, Irenaeus sees Adam as being in a state of ‘infancy’ and so as not
having been made perfect from the beginning.31 Given this state of infancy, God foresaw
how easily Adam was to be misled by the jealous ‘deceiver’ (Satan), and the consequences
that would flow from the fall into sin. What we inherit from Adam is a corruptible and
mortal nature.32 Yet from the vantage point of God’s eternal plan for created being, this
­cannot prevent us from ultimately enjoying the blissful state of incorruptibility and immor-
tality, for God does not cease to confer benefits and to enrich humanity so that we might
arrive at the perfected end of beholding the glory of God.33 Salvation, therefore, appears as
the conquering and swallowing up of mortality and corruptibility by immortality and incor-
ruptibility (see 1 Cor 15:53–55), which has taken place definitively in the resurrection of
Christ from the dead in the power of the spirit.34 The whole historical process is directed
toward the paschal mystery of Christ as the purpose of creation itself.
This view of salvation is expressed concisely by Irenaeus’s principle of the admirable
exchange of natures in Christ: ‘The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through
his transcendent love, become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is
himself.’35 In light of the incarnation of the Word that reaches its zenith in the bodily
resurrection of Christ, Irenaeus sees God as bestowing salvation upon the whole of

30 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.11.2. The translation is from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1987).
31 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38.1. Irenaeus followed Theophilus of Antioch, who held that
Adam had to grow towards perfection (heaven) through a process of education (paideusis),
which is why he was not fit to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
32 Mortality should not be seen, though, as punishment for Adam’s sin, which would imply
a number of things that are unacceptable today. It would mean that God inflicted this evil
upon us, and it would imply that there was no death in creation before the arrival of human
beings. The latter would contradict the theory of evolution, our understanding of the world,
and would paint a picture of a cruel and absurd God who punishes all creatures for the wrong-
doing of one. These problems are identified, for example, by the Orthodox theologian John
Chryssavgis in his article entitled ‘Original Sin—An Orthodox Perspective,’ which appears
in Neil Ormerod, Grace and Disgrace: A Theology of Self-Esteem, Society, and History
(Newton, N.S.W.: E. J. Dwyer, 1992), 197–206, at 202.
33 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.11.2. The conferring of benefits is especially apparent in the
Jewish patriarchs, Moses, the exodus event, the Jewish prophets, and the incarnation of the
son of God (that culminates in his resurrection from the dead).
34 Ibid., 3.19.1.
35 Ibid., 5. Preface.
Novello 247

human nature, not merely a part (the soul). But on the view that Christ saves us by shar-
ing in what we are, the condescension of the son must involve his assumption of the
fallen human condition: in order to redeem us, ‘he had to take up the ancient formation
of Adam.’36 If Christ, the second Adam, had merely assumed unfallen human nature,
then he would not know the human condition from the inside (see Heb 4:15) and he could
not be our Saviour, who elevates us to the lofty heights of participating in the divine
nature. ‘For the glory of God is man alive, and the life of man consists in beholding
God.’37
The distinction between image and likeness to God is also pertinent, which Irenaeus
makes as a defence of the unity of the human being against the teaching of the gnostics:
the ‘image’ of God is constituted by the flesh, the ‘natural’ gifts of bodiliness, intelli-
gence, and freedom (which is God’s handiwork), whereas the ‘likeness’ to God is the
supreme gift of the spirit and is thus the ‘supernatural’ gift of God.38 This understanding
of image and likeness to God, moreover, is set forth within a trinitarian framework of the
Father who creates through his ‘two hands’; namely, the son (Word of God), who is pre-
destined to be made flesh, and the spirit (Wisdom of God), who makes us like God.39 The
sin of Adam has resulted in humans not being able to attain to the perfect likeness of
God; but the image of God remains intact so that humans are still capable of increasing
and advancing towards God, notwithstanding the fact that sin has weakened this capac-
ity. If the image of God remains intact in Adam’s descendants, this means that humans
are still personally responsible for their use of freedom of will (the doctrine of judgement
rests upon this fact). The reason the image of God is held to be inviolable by Irenaeus is
that he sees the human as created in the image of the eternal son who, according to God’s
eternal plan, became incarnate in Jesus Christ and assumed fallen human nature so as to
elevate it to the likeness of God, in the spirit. Only Christ, the second Adam, who ‘reca-
pitulates’ in himself the original handiwork of the Father, possesses the perfect likeness

36 Ibid., 5.1. See Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 75–76.
37 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.7.
38 Ibid., 4.6.1. Irenaeus repudiates the dualism of the gnostics by asserting that the image is
constituted in body and soul, not merely in the soul. The unity of the human is vigorously
upheld; hence, the body is included in God’s salvation. Irenean anthropology is compatible
with contemporary thought regarding the properties of the soul as ‘emergent properties’ that
cannot be thought in isolation from the human-brain-in-the-body-in-social-relations. For a
collection of essays on scientific and theological portraits of human nature, see Warren S.
Brown, Nancey Murphy and H. Newton Maloney, eds, Whatever Happened to the Soul?
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998); and Robert J. Russell, Nancey Murphy, Theo C. Meyering,
and Michael A. Arbib, eds, Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine
Action (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory, 1999).
39 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.6.1. For Irenaeus, the Spirit, not the Word, is the Wisdom of
God. The intellectual nature of the human finds its perfection in wisdom that draws the mind
and the will to love what is true and good. Likeness to God corresponds to God’s own spirit
that is breathed into the human, and the human develops a more and more perfect likeness to
God through the proper use of freedom of will.
248 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

to God, for only in the risen one has the spirit taken hold of flesh and bestowed upon it
incorruptibility and immortality.40
This conclusion in respect of Christ alone possessing the perfect likeness to God
serves to reinforce the understanding that Christ is at the centre of Christian faith and life,
so that what is said about Mary must respect this principle. However, while it is right to
subordinate Mary to Christ, the question that still remains is whether it is sufficient—as
the tendency has been since Vatican II—to regard Mary as the model of faith and
­pre-eminent Christian disciple or whether she should be assigned a more distinctive and
unique role in the history of salvation. In considering a reply to this question, the theol-
ogy of grace that emerges from Irenaeus’ work, which is very similar to Rahner’s
­theology of grace, will help to provide some guiding ideas. In what follows it will become
apparent that talk of original sin must not be allowed to overshadow what is primary or
fundamental in the God–world relation: not the reality of sin, but the reality of grace that
brings created nature to perfection by raising it to the level of participation in the divine
nature.
The trinitarian perspective of Irenaeus indicates that grace is not conceived quantita-
tively as some ‘thing’ but qualitatively and relationally as God’s self-communication to
the world: God the Father gives freely of that which is most personal to him, namely, the
son and the spirit. By situating creation in the trinity and insisting that the human is only
capable of advancing toward God in a progressive fashion, Irenaeus is able to uphold
effectively the idea of one eternal decree of God in which all things are predestined to
glorious union with God as their final end. There was, in other words, no salvage plan on
the part of God when Adam sinned; the Father’s sending of the Word into the world was
not an afterthought designed to remedy an unforeseen catastrophe. On the contrary, given
that created reality is configured to the incarnation of the Word—i.e. redemption in
Christ is the purpose of creation itself—the gratuity of creation is already the grace of
Christ. If the first Adam is a type of he who was to come, God’s grace offered to Adam
in the first instance of his existence is grace given in view of the incarnate one in whom
the powers of death have been conquered as the definitive manifestation and workings of
grace in the world.
This line of argument is also characteristic of Rahner’s thinking on grace, as is evident
in his assertion that God’s eternal love for the world is the ‘cause’ of the event of the
incarnation of the Word of God. All grace prior to the Christ-event, for Rahner, is grace
given in view of Christ who is the unsurpassable and definitive self-communication of
God’s forgiving love in human history, a love that overcomes sin and death and offers
fallen humans the real hope of sharing in the paschal mystery of Christ, through the
spirit. In a manner that recalls the fundamental dynamics that operate in Irenaeus’

40 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.18.7, 3.21.10, 3.23.1. That Christ alone possesses the perfect
likeness to God will later be used to elucidate how we can plausibly talk about the privileges
of Mary in a way that subordinates Mary to Christ, while, at the same time, safeguarding her
special role in the history of salvation. It will be proposed that the grace of the immaculate
conception is the grace of possessing the perfect image of God, and that Mary’s likeness to
God is accomplished fully only in her assumption into heaven, that is, sharing in her son’s
resurrection from the dead.
Novello 249

theology, Rahner underlines how the emptiness of death is transformed into the plenitude
of life by Christ’s paschal mystery.41 To be perfectly redeemed by Christ is to share in his
resurrection from the dead as the ultimate fruits of life in the power of the spirit.
(b) On the understanding that grace is universally present in the world and offered
to all in view of Christ, some light can now be shed on the problem of how to inter-
pret Mary’s privilege in respect of when the life of grace began in her. The dogma of
the immaculate conception states that Mary was ‘preserved’ from the stain of origi-
nal sin ‘from the first instant of her conception’ by a ‘singular grace’ of almighty
God. The rest of humanity, by implication, is born with original sin and grace is
given only later with baptism (at least by desire). The problem with this, as Rahner
has argued, is that it is simply not intelligible to hold that grace is withheld until the
moment of baptism since God’s saving grace reigns over all of us, not just Mary,
from the first moment of our existence. The meaning of the dogma, then, ‘cannot
simply consist in the fact that she was graced a little earlier, temporally speaking,
than we were. The distinction must lie deeper, and this deeper distinction must con-
dition the temporal difference.’42
Rahner finds the understanding of how Mary’s relationship to sin and grace differs
from the rest of humanity in the relationship between freedom and predestination. Mary’s
free response to Gabriel in the annunciation story is something that is predestined in the
eternal designs of God, as is Christ’s free acceptance of his mission unto death. Rahner
sees no incompatibility between divine grace and human freedom, since the latter is
ultimately the capacity for God and is perfected by grace which is simply God’s self-
communication to the human subject. If in accordance with God’s purpose the redemption
through the son ‘was to take place by the assumption of an Adamitic human nature ... then
it is immediately clear that in God’s predetermining will for this Christ an earthly mother
of the son was likewise predestined.’43 Mary’s free consent to be the Mother of the son
is already given, yet her perfect collaboration with God implies that she is the holy one
who has been perfectly redeemed.44 God’s saving purpose, even prior to the remission of
original sin by baptism, embraces each one of us from the first instant of our existence,
yet what distinguishes Mary from the rest of humanity is that she was predestined to be
the mother of the son. It is this mystery of Mary’s predestination which ‘first gives its

41 Karl Rahner, On the Theology of Death, trans. Charles H. Henkey (Freiburg: Herder, 1961), 70.
42 Karl Rahner, ‘The Immaculate Conception,’ in Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 1
(London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 201–213, at 208. See also Philip Endean, ‘How to
Think About Mary’s Privileges: A Post-Conciliar Exposition,’ in Mary: The Complete Resource,
ed. Sarah Jane Boss (London: Continuum, 2007), 284–291, at 288–90. Ratzinger agrees with
Rahner that the issue cannot be a chronological one (Ratzinger, Daughter Zion, 69).
43 Rahner, ‘The Immaculate Conception,’ 209.
44 Mary, though, I would be keen to stress, is perfectly redeemed as far as ‘subjective’ redemp-
tion is concerned. But, as will become apparent, since ‘objective’ redemption in Christ is
perfected in his resurrection from the dead, the perfection of objective redemption in Mary
happens in her assumption, when she attains a perfect likeness to God.
250 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

real meaning to the temporal difference between her and us in the mystery of the
Immaculate Conception.’45
To assert that Mary is redeemed from the first instant of her conception does not
amount to a denial of Mary’s growing in grace and her deep involvement with this world.
The developmental view of the human person as advancing and increasing towards God
serves to underline that Mary too must be thought of as opening herself more and more
to God’s love, a process that paves the way for the conceiving of Christ in her heart
before she conceived him in her womb. The grace of the immaculate conception is the
privilege of radical openness or ‘total dispossession of self’ in freedom before God,
which, in the perspective of Irenean anthropology, can be expressed by saying that the
immaculate conception confers upon Mary the perfect image of God.46 As Mary is
engaged with her concrete surroundings, she is called at each moment to respond to God
according to her capacity for total dispossession of self in freedom before God. This
responsive process of appropriating God’s love tends towards the total taking over of her
person by the spirit, so that Mary is to be seen as growing in her likeness to God. Irenaeus,
however, rightly maintains that only Christ possesses the perfect likeness to God, not
only because of his divine identity as the son but also because it is in him that the spirit
has taken hold of flesh and raised it to the glorious level of incorruptibility and immortal-
ity. Mary, then, only attains to perfect likeness to God in the event of her assumption into
heaven as a sharing in the glory of her son’s bodily resurrection.
(c) How does Rahner’s understanding of salvation compare with the view of salvation
expressed by the principle of admirable exchange of natures in Jesus Christ? Rahner is
certainly partial to this principle, as is apparent when he states that the ‘incarnation
appears as the divinization of the world as a whole.’47 The divinization of the world is
conceived by Rahner as a process of becoming in which matter develops in the direction
of spirit. This process has reached its zenith in the event of Jesus Christ. On this view, the
grace that God continually bestows upon the world from the beginning of time is grace
freely given in view of Christ; hence, Rahner paints a similar picture of grace to that of
Irenaeus, which is strongly incarnational and based upon the mystery of the hypostatic
union as the mystery at the centre of the world. For both Rahner and Irenaeus, the world
is created in the image of the son who is predestined to become incarnate in Christ and
reveal to us sinners the marvellous designs of God in the divine economy of creation and

45 Rahner, ‘The Immaculate Conception,’ 211.

46 Ratzinger, Daughter Zion, 70. Christ, of course, is the perfect image of God as well. He is,
however, superior to Mary in that he is the eternal Word of the father by nature, whereas Mary
possesses the perfect image of God by grace.
47 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity,
trans. William V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 1978), 181 (emphasis added). The diviniza-
tion of the world, moreover, is closely tied to Rahner’s notion of ‘active self-transcendence’
as the process of becoming something qualitatively new, as the attainment of a ‘higher nature’
(see Karl Rahner, ‘The Unity of Spirit and Matter in the Christian Understanding of Faith,’ in
Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 6 [London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1969],
153–177, at 174–176; Karl Rahner, ‘Christology Within an Evolutionary View of the World,’
in Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 5 [London: Darton, Longman, and Todd,
1966], 157–192, at 163–165).
Novello 251

redemption. The reality of sin is not the original reality into which we are born, but rather
the reality of grace that overcomes sin and promises us the joy of eternal life.
Notwithstanding sin, we are still capable of making progress towards God inasmuch as
the imago Dei is inviolable and we are inalienably referred to God. The denial of the
human being as capax Dei is tantamount to rendering impossible the mystery of the incar-
nation; as also the concomitant mystery of the immaculate conception, which is situated
within the circle of the son’s predestination to incarnation. Both Irenaeus and Rahner
regard created nature as inherently spiritual (and sacramental) because charged with the
presence of the divine and, thus, the place of encounter with the transcendent God.
Rahner’s endorsement of this incarnational perspective is apparent in the following:

The point of the thesis that we are trying to establish is this: although the hypostatic union is a
unique event in its own essence, and viewed in itself it is the highest conceivable event, it is
nevertheless an intrinsic moment within the whole process by which grace is bestowed upon all
spiritual creatures .... Grace in all of us and hypostatic union in the one Jesus Christ can only be
understood together, and as a unity they signify the one free decision of God for a supernatural
order of salvation, for his self-communication. In Christ the self-communication of God takes
place basically to all men. This is meant not in the sense that they would also have the hypostatic
union as such, but rather that the hypostatic union takes place insofar as God wishes to
communicate himself to all men in grace and glory.48

On this understanding, we can say that Mary was preserved from original sin not in
view of the merits of Christ, but in view of God’s self-giving to the world in grace from the
beginning of time, which is directed toward the unique event of the incarnation of the son
as the divinization (final perfection) of created nature. The son is the alpha and the omega,
the beginning and the end, the one through whom all things are created and in whom all
things find their fulfilment and perfection, so that communion with him (in the spirit) sim-
ply is redemption. The existence of Mary—since it is a predestined existence of total com-
munion with the son—is a life of total communion with grace; thus, she is redeemed from
the first instant of her conception.49 This special privilege of Mary, though, as the previous
section has underlined, must be considered within the context of Mary as the flowering of
the history of the great women of Israel who embody Israel’s deepest hope in respect of the
coming of the Lord who will establish final salvation for Israel and the world.

Mary in Light of Four Theses on Original Sin

In light of this discussion, we are now in a position to turn to four theses on original sin,
in order to consider how each thesis impacts upon a comprehensive understanding of the

48 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 201–202. The self-communication of God to human-

ity is called ‘grace’ during the course of its historical process and ‘glory’ when it reaches its
high point of fulfilment in the heavenly life to come (divinization as sharing in Christ’s bodily
resurrection).
49 See Joseph Paredes, Mary and the Kingdom of God: A Synthesis of Mariology (Middlegreen,
Slough: St Paul, 1991), 226–227.
252 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

unique privileges granted to Mary who is the link figure between the old covenant and
the new. The first three theses relate to the privilege of the immaculate conception, while
the fourth thesis has to do with the crowning privilege of the assumption of Mary into
heaven.

Thesis One: Person in Nature

Since the human being is the product of biological evolution, its natural drives, appetites,
and instincts are attached to the genetic side of its inheritance. The human is moved by
its natural desires, yet it takes much wisdom to direct them constructively in order to
attain integration of the self. There exists a natural lack of congruence between the
innate natural desires and the human spirit which harbours the integral self. This ‘natu-
ral’ concupiscence is not sin or the result of sin, but inclines toward sin.
This thesis highlights the bodiliness of the human person, and how it mediates the
physical, biophysical, and psychophysical processes of the cosmos. Bodiliness implies
that the body is not altogether discrete, it is not radically individuated, but is to be
understood as the common matrix in and through which individual humans are related
to the cosmos and humanity as a whole. It is by virtue of our bodiliness (I-as-situated-
by-otherness), then, that we establish the complex of relationships by which we grow
into the world and we take the world into ourselves, thereby forging our identity as
persons (I-as-developing-self).50 We are dependent upon the material cosmos, yet, at
the same time, we must respond actively to the structures of the cosmos and take them
on in a constructive fashion so as to create genuine ‘habitats.’ We endeavour, as spiri-
tual beings, to turn cosmic processes to constructive ends, especially by integrating
them into genuinely human relationships that reflect God’s purposes for the process of
evolving nature.
The privilege of the immaculate conception—understood as the grace of perfect
openness and receptivity to God in view of Christ the son—means that Mary is able to
direct consistently her natural drives, appetites, and instincts into paths willed by God,
paths that lead to good ends and to the integration of her immanent self. As radical open-
ness and receptivity to God, this special grace conferred on the predestined Mary must
be understood dynamically, not statically, for such capacity for self-transcendence is
what makes possible her active response to God so that she is able to overcome ‘natural’
concupiscence. By opening herself more and more to God’s love, Mary grows in the
wisdom of God’s ways, yet such wisdom is acquired not apart from, but in and through,
her experiences of everyday life in Galilee and her recognition of the need to take on
the natural conditions of existence in a constructive fashion. Mary, through her bodiliness—
what Irenaeus calls ‘flesh’—is aware of the human condition as inherently fallible, yet,
at the same time, she is conscious of her flesh as the handiwork of God (image of God)
and the temple of the spirit (likeness to God), and thus as the medium for God’s self-
communication to the world in love.

50 For a discussion of the engagement of the human person in cosmic processes, see Frans Jozef
van Beeck, God Encountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology, vol. 2, part 3
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1995), 47–50, 113–120.
Novello 253

In Mary, then, the natural and cosmic processes of the human being have been ele-
vated to a higher level than in the rest of humankind in preparation for the event of the
incarnation, an event in which evolving nature reaches a climactic point, for it represents
the divinization of the world. The redemption of Mary’s body, though, is not complete,
for she is subject to mortality, thus she points to her son, the redeemer, as the one through
whom her body will be perfectly redeemed in respect of objective redemption by being
drawn up into the glory of his paschal mystery.

Thesis Two: Person in History

The human being is born into an historical situation of sin which enters into, and
becomes, an inner determination of human freedom. There exists a prepersonal dimen-
sion to sin that attaches to the human not only as natural being but also as historical
being. The social-cultural sphere of existence is experienced as a situational privation of
sanctifying grace.
This thesis gives expression to the situationist interpretation of original sin, which
seeks to offer a more intelligible picture of original sin than the traditional one regarding
a biological inheritance of sin and guilt. The strength of the situationist formulation is that
it acknowledges an objective situation of sin in the sphere of history and this privation of
sanctifying grace is readily apparent to all, given the pervasive evils that wreak havoc on
human society. In light of the fact that sin is never purely a private and personal matter,
but enters into the sphere of history and becomes part of the fabric of societal and com-
munal life, the reality of sin without becomes an inner determination of human freedom.
On this interpretation of original sin (as the sin of the world), the dogma of the immacu­
late conception can be taken to mean that, although Mary is subjected to the negative
currents of sin in history, these do not become an inner determination of her freedom.
Once again we should not view this privilege of Mary in a way that is removed from his-
tory, but as closely tied to the concrete setting of her Jewish world with its history of
fidelity and infidelity, and with its suffering under Roman occupation and rule. As Mary
interacts with the situation around her, she observes a world deprived of sanctifying grace
and groaning for salvation. Her strong Jewish faith in God’s fidelity toward Israel, how-
ever, coupled with her exceptional sense of fidelity toward God above all else, means that
she is preserved from the negative currents of sin and infidelity that invariably choke the
possibilities of human existence and bring deadly consequences for humanity and society.
Mary steadfastly and faithfully prepares in her heart for the coming of the messiah of
Israel; she anticipates the One who will save Israel and the world from the negative cur-
rents of sin so as to bring God’s purposes for the historical process to full flowering.

Thesis Three: Person as Response

The reality of original sin impacts the whole person. It should not be associated with only
the biological or the cultural side of the human. In light of our peculiar exocentricity and
the emergenist theory of personhood, the person is required to respond to both these
conditionings. The source of moral evil lies in the human will and we cannot escape
personal responsibility for sin.
254 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

This thesis acknowledges the personalist reinterpretation of original sin, where the
emphasis falls on the depth dimension of sin within the person who wilfully turns away
from God, which is acknowledged in the confession of guilt. Personal responsibility for
sin is underscored in scripture; but it is highlighted equally by the scientific portrait of
the person as the complex system which is the human-brain-in-the-body-in-social-
relations.51 As the supreme example of whole-part influence, the person is not reducible
to the parts of the system, but rather exerts top-down causality on the body and on social
relations. To overcome original sin in this personalist perspective is to undergo conver-
sion of heart and to come to know real or spiritual freedom, since such freedom to love
God above all else comes as gift of the spirit.
From the perspective of this third thesis, to hold that Mary is preserved free from the
stain of original sin means that her person is not in deep complicity with sin; thus, she
has no need to undergo conversion of heart. The grace of the immaculate conception
confers upon Mary the freedom to love God in total dispossession of self, which is dis-
closed in her perfect response (fiat) to God in the annunciation story. Once again, care
must be exercised not to interpret this privilege in a manner that discounts the historical,
for Mary’s receptivity to God’s call in all moments of her life takes place in the concrete
reality of a human world that finds itself in deep complicity with sin, so that her freedom
is exercised in her involvement with everyday concrete life and the many challenges and
trials of faith that it presents. Mary, throughout the course of her life, displays an ability
to allow the underlying graciousness of reality to provide the basic orientation of her
personal existence in the world; she experiences only positive impulses of grace that give
true life, transcendent meaning and goodness, and that enable her to grow in likeness to
God through the workings of the spirit. This predestined life of purity of heart, of spiri-
tual freedom to love God above all else, has the virginal conception of her son as its
intended divine purpose, so that Mary becomes the personification of the deepest hopes
of Israel (in respect of the promise of eschatological salvation) and the power of God to
bring about the impossible.

Thesis Four: Person in Jesus Christ

From the perspective of the dynamics of the ultimate revealed in Jesus Christ risen, who
is the centre and measure of the human, the reality of original sin denotes the gap or
discrepancy between what we humans presently are and what we are destined to become
in the glorified Christ. Sin does not constitute our first ontological status, it is not our
original reality, for the deeper situation that we humans are born into is our being cre-
ated imago Dei and thus being destined to partake of the divine nature and enjoy the
beatitude of eternal life.
The primacy of grace underlined in this fourth thesis goes hand in hand with the view,
affirmed by Irenaeus and Rahner, that there is but one eternal decree of God that predes-
tines creaturely beings to glorious union with God, through the son, in the spirit. This
implies that present reality has a directional qualification: the perfection of creation is not
given at the beginning but lies ahead as God’s promise of eternal life to come. The

51 The notion of bodiliness presented in thesis one conveys this complex system.
Novello 255

present reality is experienced as fragmented, limited, fallible, and burdened with guilt,
yet out of this predicament arises the consciousness of being referred to something more,
to the eternal other, who is the absolute origin and absolute future of the world. The
spatio-temporal ‘sphere’ of existence, in other words, is experienced as deprived of
grace, but the ‘horizon’ of existence is the transcendental presence of God’s original and
originating blessing. This is clearly the picture that we see in the history of the great
women of Israel discussed above, which culminates in the figure of Daughter Zion as the
one through whom the promised blessings to Israel finally come to fruition.
From the standpoint of the transcendental presence of grace as the horizon of exist­
ence, it becomes apparent that the original situation that humanity is born into is not sin
but our being created in the image and likeness of God. In this article, it has been pro-
posed that it is helpful to think of the unique grace of the immaculate conception as
Mary’s privilege of being the perfect image of God, so that her existence is one of perfect
openness and receptivity to God’s self-communication. This perfect image of God in
Mary, though, is intimately connected with the understanding that Mary stands within
the circle of the predestination of Christ. In God’s eternal plan for the salvation of the
world, all of us are predestined to the glory of beholding God; however, of no other per-
son but Mary can it be said that the son’s coming into the world is dependent upon her
‘yes’ to God. She co-operates in the redemption of the world in a unique way that belongs
to God’s eternal design. Mary conceives Christ first in her heart as preparation for con-
ceiving him in her womb and imparting her flesh to him, which is consistent with the
incarnational model of the God–world relation. What is more, Mary’s purity of heart
serves not merely to prepare for the birth of the Saviour, but beyond this, serves as an
integral part of the personal development of the child Jesus (a point that reminds us of
Jesus’ genuine humanity). The grace of the immaculate conception, which points to
Mary’s perfect openness and radical communion with God in view of the coming of
Christ, already indicates grace as the original reality that bestows upon fallen humanity
the gift of sharing in the glory of the divine life.
A further point in respect of this fourth thesis, which will involve a discussion of the
assumption of Mary, concerns our being predestined to partake of the divine nature.52 In
the scheme of Irenean anthropology, this final end of humanity amounts to perfect likeness
to God, which is received as gift of the spirit. The key question that arises here is: Was
Mary perfectly redeemed by the grace of the immaculate conception, or was her redemp-
tion completed by her assumption into heaven? Rahner, for example, who emphasizes that
redemption is rooted in human freedom, views Mary as already perfectly redeemed by the
grace of her immaculate conception because the latter is configured to her definitive ‘yes’
to God in the annunciation narrative. What Rahner has in view here, though, is Mary’s
subjective redemption, which he conceives as inextricably tied to objective redemption in
Christ. Since, together with Irenaeus, Rahner subscribes to the model of divinization, it
follows that redemption cannot be perfected until human nature is glorified by participat-
ing in the divine nature. Redemption is completed, in other words, in the resurrection of
Christ from the dead, and no one, including Mary, can attain to perfect likeness to God

52 The dogma was defined by Pius XII in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus of
1950 (DS 3902–3903). The assumption of Mary is the crowning glory of her privileges.
256 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

unless they are drawn up into the risen Christ, in the power of the spirit (see John 12:32).
Donal Flanagan expresses this basic point persuasively when he writes:

The Resurrection of Jesus is the definitive saving act of God. In it he is clearly revealed as the
God of man’s salvation, as a God who saves. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (Jn 3:16). In the
Resurrection we are given to see God as he is, we are also given to see man as God created him
to be. In the Risen Jesus we see the destiny of humankind revealed. We learn that man was
made only for glory, to live in the glory of God in his very bodiliness. Jesus, raised from the
dead, is the concrete and personal exemplar of humanity saved and he is given to us as our
model and the ultimate ground of our hope.53

This citation makes plain that final salvation, as glorified bodiliness, comes as the gift of
eternal life in the resurrected Christ. The risen one is the saviour upon whom the whole
of humanity depends, including Mary. All the grace that Mary receives is grace given in
view of Christ the redeemer, so that she too depends totally on her son and his spirit for
her final salvation. The assumption, then, depends totally on the resurrection of Christ,
and brings to completion Mary’s objective redemption as the work of the spirit in her.
The meaning of the assumption is that Mary has received salvation in its entirety; she in
her entire being ‘is already where perfect redemption exists, entirely in that region of
being which came to be through Christ’s Resurrection.’54
It is worth noting (with respect to Mary’s assumption into heaven) that the definition
of the dogma is confined to statements about Mary. The assumption is the crowning
glory of Mary’s privileges, but the word ‘singular’ is not to be found in the definition,
which distinguishes it from the dogma of the immaculate conception where the word
‘singular’ is a feature of the definition.55 This can be taken to mean that the privilege
given to Mary is not defined as being unique and given to her alone, although clearly
Mary does stand out pre-eminently among those who belong to Christ (given her mother-
hood of the son and unique role in co-operating with the work of redemption). The defi-
nition leaves open, then, the possibility that persons other than Mary exist in a state of
glory similar to hers.56 In the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, the evangelist writes that
at the time of Christ’s death ‘the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints
who had fallen asleep were raised’ (Matt 27:52). Clearly, for Matthew, the saints already

53 Flanagan, The Theology of Mary, 67.

54 Karl Rahner, ‘The Interpretation of the Dogma of the Assumption,’ in Karl Rahner, Theological
Investigations, vol. 1 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 215–227, at 225. Rahner
argues that the assumption depends totally on Christ’s resurrection, which opens up the ‘new
spatiality’ of heaven.
55 It is interesting to note, however, that the Catechism of the Catholic Church does speak of the
assumption as a ‘singular’ participation of Mary in her son’s resurrection and as ‘an antici-
pation of the resurrection of other Christians’ (Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed.
[Strathfield, N.S.W.: St Pauls, 2000], 966).
56 This is an important point for those who subscribe to a theory of resurrection at death, which
is gaining support in contemporary theology (see Bernard P. Prusak, ‘Bodily Resurrection in
Catholic Perspectives,’ Theological Studies 61 [2000]: 64–105).
Novello 257

share in the paschal mystery of Christ who has conquered death in the full sense so as to
open the gateway to the glory of heavenly life.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the privileged status of Mary is evident in that she, unlike the rest of
humankind, does not lack personal (thesis three), social (thesis two), and cosmic (thesis
one) integration.57 The integrity of her being stems from the unique grace of the immacu-
late conception that confers upon her the perfect image of God, and this grace is the grace
of Christ inasmuch as the incarnation of the son belongs to God’s original design in the
economy of creation and redemption: all things are from the father, through the son, and
in the spirit, and the whole of creation is predestined, by grace, to share in the ineffable
life of the trinity. What is distinctive about Mary, however, is that she is predestined to be
the mother of God; thus, she stands within the circle of the predestination of the incarna-
tion of the son who became what we are in order that we might become what he is. The
incarnation is dependent upon Mary’s co-operation with God, for she willingly and lov-
ingly says ‘yes’ to the son taking his flesh from her body. The eschatological dimension
elaborated in thesis four serves, however, to highlight that Mary was not spared mortal-
ity, which is integral to the human condition; thus, her redemption, understood as sharing
in the divine nature of her son, is completed when the whole of her enfleshed personality
is transformed by being raised up into the heavenly glory of immortality.58 Given the
perfection of subjective redemption in Mary, it follows that she was free from the fear
and obscurity that accompany death because of consciousness of personal sin. This does
not mean, however, that Mary was exempt from death as transformation, which repre-
sents the completion of her objective redemption in Christ.
Finally, the findings of this article support the ecclesiotypical approach to mariology
favoured by Vatican II and the ecumenical dialogues, although a degree of ‘high’ mariol-
ogy should be retained. As long as we acknowledge the special election of Mary as stand-
ing within the circle of the son’s predestination to incarnation, then she is superior to the

57 Mary’s son, of course, is superior to her on all three counts by virtue of being the second
person of the trinity, through whom the world has come into being (see John 1:1–5). In the
incarnation of the eternal son, what takes place is the divinization of humanity and the world
as a whole, which process reaches its zenith in the glorified body of the son.
58 Mention should be made of the fact that the definition of the dogma of the assumption is
intentionally vague about Mary’s death: ‘when the course of her earthly life was ended’ (DS
3903). Nowhere in the definition does Pius XII say that Mary died. The Christian tradition,
though, has constantly maintained that she did die, for it would make no sense to hold that
Mary was spared death while her divine son, the redeemer, suffered a humiliating death on a
cross. For a discussion of this topic, see John Peter Kenny, The Living Hope of Christians: A
Christian Estimate of What Lies Beyond the Tomb (Homebush, N.S.W.: St Pauls, 1995), 131–
144, esp. 137–138. Tambasco speaks of Mary’s death in terms of ‘transformation’ (Tambasco,
What Are They Saying About Mary? 53). I suspect that Pius XII’s rationale for not explicitly
stating that Mary died is as follows: physical death is the result of sin, Mary is without sin,
therefore she did not suffer physical death; Christ, though he is without sin, freely underwent
death on a cross so as to make satisfaction for sin and redeem fallen humanity.
258 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(3)

rest of humanity. But insofar as Mary is dependent upon her son in the matter of her
redemption and lives out the demands of holiness in an involved way in the context of a
fallen world, she stands very much with humanity and the Church facing Christ and
pointing to him as the saviour of the world. Mary is not the one in whom we participate
but the paradigm of participation in Christ in whom ‘all things hold together’ (Col
1:17).59 In an ecclesiotypical framework, the grace of the immaculate conception appears
as sign and pledge of what the Church is, namely, the Church is to be holy by virtue of
being conformed to Christ, which brings about personal, social, and cosmic integration.
But this complex process of participation in Christ (sharing in the divine nature) is not
fully realized in this life; therefore, the assumption of Mary serves as sign and pledge of
the final glorification of the pilgrim Church in a ‘new creation,’ where mortality and cor-
ruptibility will be no more.

Author Biography
Henry Novello is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at The Flinders University of
South Australia, Department of Theology. He taught Systematic Theology at The
University of Notre Dame Australia for five years and has published articles in
Gregorianum, Pacifica, Irish Theological Quarterly, Colloquium, Australasian Catholic
Record and Compass. His special field of interest is eschatology.

59 David S. Yeago speaks of Mary as the paradigm of participation in Christ. He describes Christ
as the forma formans, the form-giving form, while Mary is the forma formata, the form that
has received formation, the prototype of those who are not the Saviour (David S. Yeago, ‘The
Presence of Mary in the Mystery of the Church,’ 72–73).