Defending the Faith: Mary Without Sin? Part 1: The "All" Argument

This next issue is one of the big ones that has been fought out on the theological battlefield for countless years...

The Evangelical Stance - There are two main verses that most all Protestants attack the belief that Mary was sinless with

1. "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Romans 3:23)
2. "There is no one righteous, not even one...all have turned away..." (Romans 3:10, 12)

In our modern day culture, this in and of itself is very absolute. The word "all" is 100% inclusive in our English language...or at least that's what many Protestant theologians would want us to believe. When one takes that word and adds in "not even one" as extra theological ammunition, it seems pretty cut and dry. Every one on earth are sinners and fall short of God's glory. You can't get much more black and white than that.
 
Or can you?

The Counter Argument - The first problem that arises with the argument of an imperfect Mary are in the exact verses that claim that she was imperfect. What does that mean? Let's break down each verse:

•  "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Romans 3:23)


• At first, this seems absolute - but we must ask ourselves, is it? Does all literally mean all in the absolute? Could this all include exceptions? And the answer is a resounding yes. How do we know? Firstly, it's common sense. If Paul means all (every single person on earth has sinned - and remember, Paul is only speaking of personal sin here ) have sinned, he believes that an 11 week old baby has sinned. He believes that a severely disabled person who is not in control of their decisions or faculties are sinful. He also believes that Jesus himself was a sinner.
  
  But is that what Paul means? Of course not. Can a baby that young sin? No. Can a severely disabled person sin? No. And here comes the wow factor - Christians believe that Jesus was 100% divine, yes. But he was also 100% human through and though. So per Paul's statement, that "all" would apply to Christ himself because of His 100% humanity. But of course we know that Jesus never sinned. So based on this, there are exceptions to Paul's "all". So knowing that there is one exception to the absolute "all", can there be others? Yes. Tons of them.
• Matthew 3:5 speaking about John baptizing in the River Jordan says that, "Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan..." Did literally all the inhabitants of all three of those countries and regions come to be baptized by John? No of course not. He couldn't ker-plunk 'em fast enough. And certainly the Pharisees of those areas who were solidly against his teachings would never have shown up to be baptized.
• In 1 Corinthians 15:22, Paul says that, "For as in Adam all die..." Does he literally mean all people die? No. Because we see in 2 Kings 2 and in Genesis 5:24 that, respectively, Elijah and Enoch both did not die but instead, we taken into heaven by God himself.
• In Romans 11:26 we read that, "all Israel will be saved." Is this literal? Of course not. There are those in Israel then and now who denounced and do not believe in Christ. So again, we see major exceptions to the "All" Argument.

And perhaps the biggest deconstruction of the "All" Argument is found in the original translation of Paul's letter to the Romans. Our English translates as "all" what the original Greek means as "most". And that, should put to bed the "All" Argument to bed once and for all as nothing more than a simple misunderstanding of a word that was used in Romans 3:23 and throughout other parts of the Bible as only a generic universality to stress a very important point.  


•  "There is no one righteous, not even one...all have turned away..." (Romans 3:10, 12)
• Again, we see Paul (though he is not using "all") using a style of generic universality for the purposes of proving his point. We can deconstruct this in the same way that we deconstructed the absoluteness of Romans 3:23. We can deconstruct it even more once we realize that Paul is actually quoting the Old Testament in this moment - Psalms 14:3 to be precise. This Psalm at is core is about the denunciation of Godlessness but it is written in the literary sense of universality and not absoluteness.

The question of, "Is Mary without sin", cannot be simply answered in once succinct blog post. It is much too in depth for that. So for today's post we have answered a very important foundational question that will pave the way to answering the ultimate question of her sinlessness - are there exceptions to the "All" Argument. And the answer, proven through multiple examples of Scripture is yes.

So if there are exceptions, could Mary actually be sinless. We will find out in Part II!