Jimmy Akin discusses how Mary would have been conscious of her immaculately conceived state without knowing the precise post-Biblical term “original sin.”
Transcript:
Host: Philip on YouTube, Jimmy, watching on YouTube, typed in the following question, so it’s not a call, but: “Did the Blessed Mother know she was free from original sin?”
Jimmy: Well, she wouldn’t have used that term to articulate it, because that term is something that took centuries to develop. The term “original sin” is one of those terms like “Purgatory” or “Trinity” or “Bible” that is itself post-Biblical. It describes a Biblical reality, but the language that’s used to express it didn’t come along until later. And so the term “original sin” didn’t exist in her day, and so without that, you wouldn’t be able to say to yourself, “Well, I’m free of original sin.”
But presumably, Mary would have had a very strong sense of “I don’t want to betray God,” you know, “I want to be as close to him as I can, just the thought of sinning, it just turns me away from that. That’s repugnant to me, I don’t want to do that, I’m dead set against that, I want to be pure and holy and devoted to God, and I want to do that with all of my being.” And so she presumably would have had that kind of ability to articulate her experience as an immaculately conceived person.
And she wouldn’t–didn’t obviously have any memory of ever having sinned or having, you know, felt differently than that, but I would assume that would be the kind of way she would have articulated this, you know, “I want to be the spotless pure virgin of God that that I aspire to be.”
Host: Thank you, Philip.