Certainly much has been made of the WILLINGNESS and TRUST Mary showed when approached by the Angel who said (besides “Fear not”) that Mary was “Blessed among all” - heady stuff for an obscure teenage girl. If you buy the story verbatim, she was going to be made pregnant while unwed, so without her consent that gets weird REAL fast.
My perspective on free will is that we are indeed free to make choices independent of what God might wish, but also that God knows us so thoroughly that God knows what we are going to do, even before we do. I make the analogy of putting a bowl of chocolate ice cream and a bowl of butterscotch ice cream in front of a child we KNOW loves chocolate: the kid COULD go for either, but we KNOW he will go for the chocolate first. And how much more does God know us!
So God knew Mary was going to say yes, but God didn’t MAKE her accept. Indeed Mary’s faithful willingness is why she was picked in the first place and highlights how important that virtue is for advancing God’s plan in our world!
That priest just summed up the incoherence of the concept of free will pretty well! Sure, Mary was free to choose differently, but God knew she wouldn’t because he knows everything about her, and knew she would choose chocolate over butterscotch.
The other version of the story is that by the time he got to the Jews, God had wised up. He lifted Mount Sinai into the air and said “Do you want to make a covenant, or should I drop this mountain on you?” Instant piety!
Never read that passage before, and I have a couple questions. Why is Mary so shocked to hear that she will bear a son at some indefinite time in the future? She may have been a virgin then, but she was already engaged to be married, so this shouldn’t have been a huge surprise. Also, what’s up with Cousin Elizabeth? Never heard of her, but she got a miraculous conception too for some reason. Maybe her kid was going to be the backup if Mary had refused consent?
Yup. Luke (chapter 1) says that she was a relative (“cousin”) of Mary’s, and was old enough to be considered “barren” – she and her husband Zechariah had been unable to have children. The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, and told him that Elizabeth would bear a son, who was to be named John, and who would be “great in the sight of the Lord.”
Gabriel then visited Mary (later in Luke 1) and told her that she would bear the son of God. Later still in Luke 1, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, while they are both pregnant (Luke 1: 41-45):
Had some time to reread some of the Apocrypha on this.
In this, (Protoevangelium of James/ Assumption of Mary), there is a strong indication of “no,” in the sense that Mary is portrayed as uniquely prepared and aligned with God from the beginning of her life and given the Holy Spirit. These texts describe Mary as set apart, devoted to God from infancy, and preserved from corruption, with the Holy Spirit’s influence present in a distinctive way.
While these writings are not given the same authority in Protestant traditions, the RCC treat the apocrypha with much greater respect. In this, Mary’s parents are described as righteous but initially childless, and her birth is announced by an angel as part of God’s plan to both Mary’s Father and Mother (in a like manner that Gabriel comes to Mary later). Mary is then dedicated to the Lord, raised in the temple, and portrayed as living a life of purity and devotion, even interacting with angels and being guarded from defilement.
By the time of the Annunciation, this tradition presents Mary not as a random choice, but as someone whose entire life has been shaped toward alignment with God’s will and with alignment with the Holy Spirit. In that sense, her “yes” (Luke 1:38) appears less like a moment of uncertainty and her decision and more like the natural expression of a life already formed in obedience and grace. The alignment with God and being preserved from the the misalignment of mankind, seemed to have her choice the same choice that God wants.
That said, this perspective depends heavily on apocryphal sources. But the Gospel of Luke showing Mary’s response “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) does show that level of alignment to God’s will.
That makes it the equivalent of watching a rerun of The Superball. They had free will to run any play they wanted, but you still know how it turned out. Omnicience is knowing everything that will happen ahead of time.
Off topic, but yes. Almost anything can be made into ice cream, I have personally made coriander (aka cilantro) ice cream, avocado ice cream and I have heard of bacon ice cream (using the fat, not the meat)
Of course, these are just extras added to a basic vanilla ice cream.
People who’ve dedicated their whole lives to seriously studying philosophy and theology, over centuries, have argued and continue to do so on the matters of omniscience, free will and predestination/election. So I’m not too hot on our chances of getting it straight at SDMB.
It does not help believers that Luke is the only recognized scriptural canon on it and it is written as a matter of fact that she’s first surprised and confused, then she quickly gets on board with the plan. Everything else that the various churches teach about it is sourced from Tradition and the writings of the Church Fathers.
I would say Mary chose to say yes, because it is the moral choice. There are certain free will decisions we make, that to us the answer is obvious. Even though we have choice, we chose to act in the moral way if we are so aligned. Unless you wish to make the case that morally aligned is loss of free will, instead of using free will. Just in this case in particular Mary’s free will choice aligns with God’s
Morality, choice, free will all those things are irrelevant to the question; if omniscience exists then there’s no way could have said no, her decision was always known and preordained. If it was possible for her to make another choice, then omniscience is impossible; choice and omniscience are logically incompatible.
I would take issue with this, but even in this I don’t think that is the point in this discussion. But God could have known Mary would refuse yet ask her anyway. What matters is alignment, not choice.
Meh;
…in a multiverse Mary could have chosen either way, and both timelines would have been instantiated. God’s omniscience implies that She has already imagined what would have happened if Mary had said no, and some other woman had said yes (or none). Omniscient God knows everything.
But we are stuck in this timeline, and we never get to know ‘what would have happened’.
