Category: Marian Articles

The Immaculate Conception And Recent Ecclesiology

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THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AND RECENT
ECCLESIOLOGY:

III. Mary, the Church, and Sinlessness

WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

Christendom College
Front Royal, Virginia
1984

How does the grace of the Immaculate Conception illuminate the problems of ecclesiology? How does it clarify the new being to which we are called in the Church of God?

The purpose of this paper is to answer these questions with respect to a specific and crucial issue: the sinlessness of the Catholic Church, which is, as St. Ambrose put it, ex maculis immaculata. In order to address this issue, I must begin again with the original questions and summarize for the reader the pre-requisite clarifications which I have tried to bring to them in previous papers. Continue reading “The Immaculate Conception And Recent Ecclesiology”

The Dogma Of The Immaculate Conception In Modern Ecclesiology: Prolegomena

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THE DOGMA OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IN MODERN ECCLESIOLOGY: PROLEGOMENA

WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

Christendom College
Front Royal, Virginia

What does the Immaculate Conception have to do with the mystery of the Church? How can it help us to evaluate some recent directions in ecclesiology?

These initial questions can be taken in two senses. (1) How does the definition of the Immaculate Conception illuminate the Church’s charism of truth? How does the papal deed of 1854 help us to evaluate certain recent theories of dogma, tradition and magisterium? (2) How does the grace itself of the Immaculate Conception clarify the “new being” to which all men are called in the Church of Christ? How does the Marian privilege serve as a criterion for an adequate ecclesiology?

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Mary: Redemption And Preservation

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Mary: Redemption and Preservation

WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

FAITH AND REASON
Vol. VII, No. 2
Summer 1981
Christendom College

The following analysis of Mary’s redemption attempts to clarify the Catholic understanding of how it can be said that a person conceived without original sin can be said to be redeemed at all. The importance of William Marshner’s technical treatment of this traditionally vexing question, including his use of modal logic, will be apparent to those who regard it as a chief function of theologians to defend and advance the Faith by precisely answering as many potentially devastating questions as possible. Thus, Marshner proceeds to eliminate false understanding of Mary’s redemption so that a proper understanding might leave the central doctrines of the Church less open to attack.

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A Critique Of Marian Counterfactual Formulae: A Report Of Results

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A CRITIQUE OF MARIAN COUNTERFACTUAL FORMULAE: A REPORT OF RESULTS

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

1979
Christendom College

This paper is devoted to refuting the so-called debitum hypotheticum or conditionatum. In general, a debitum is expressed by the claim that Mary, thanks to her connexion with Adam, was under a necessity to contract original sin; the debitum conditionatum is expressed by the claim that, thanks to the same necessity, she would have contracted original sin, if one or another condition had been fulfilled (e.g., if God had not preserved her).[1]
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A Logician’s Reflections On The Debitum Contrahendi Peccatum

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A LOGICIAN’S REFLECTIONS ON THE DEBITUM CONTRAHENDI PECCATUM[1]

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

Christendom College
1978
Reprinted from MARIAN STUDIES (1978)

The long-standing theological debate over whether Our Blessed Mother can be said to have had a debitum peccati begins and ends, it seems, with both sides admitting the truth of the following contrary-to-fact condition:

(A) If she had not been preserved, Mary would have contracted original sin.[2]

The necessity of affirming this or similar counterfactuals is usually said to lie in the Church’s doctrine that Our Lady’s redemption was a “preservative” redemption. It is asked, what can “preservative” mean, if an assertion like (A) is not true?
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Criteria For Doctrinal Development In The Marian Dogmas: An Essay In Metatheology

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CRITERIA FOR DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE MARIAN DOGMAS: AN ESSAY IN METATHEOLOGY

By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER

MARIAN STUDIES, Vol. 28 (1977)
University of Dallas
Irving, Texas 75061

Synopsis

As a critique of recent proposals by E. J. Yarnold, S.J., and R. E. Brown, S.S., to re-think the “meaning” of certain Marian dogmas, a method is proposed for establishing the sense and reference (hence verifiability conditions, falsifiability conditions, axiomatic connexions, and metalinguistic “properties”) of these and other dogmas. It is shown that such a method forms an integral part of a general criteriology for doctrinal development. At the outset, then, the possibility and necessity of such a criteriology is defended against certain “theological theories” of doctrinal development, especially that of K. Rahner, S.J. Finally, the relevance of Henri Bouillard’s problematic of “reconceptualization” to the here proposed method and general criteriology is evaluated. Several philosophical and theological issues closely related to the main thesis are handled in footnoted discussions.
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Towards A Relational Theory Of Our Lady’s Co-Redeemership

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TOWARDS A RELATIONAL THEORY OF OUR LADY’S CO-REDEEMERSHIP

Prof. William H. Marshner
Prof. J. M. Alonso

Ex «Ephemerides Mariologicae» Matriti – 1977

Catholic theologians are agreed that the Mother of God, considered as «universal principle of intercession», plays a rôle in the subjective redemption (or redemption in actu secundo) of all those who in fact enter into this redemption. The question which divides counsels is her role in the objective redemption (or redemption in actu primo). Is she a factor in this redemption primarily or even exclusively because her fiat was a condition sine qua non for the Incarnation, or because her actions enter into the constitution of the objective redemption itself, being acceptable to God the Father not alongside the actions of her Divine Son but together with them per modum unius?

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