In Luke 1:47, Mary, the mother of Jesus says:
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Many opponents of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (hereafter, "IC") have stated that the IC is refuted as Mary needed a "saviour" (Greek: σωτηρ). While I am in agreement with the unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the IC, this argument, on its own, is a non sequitur, as the IC states that Mary was indeed saved by Christ's then-future merits. As the papal bull dogmatising the IC issued by Pius IX December 8, 1854 (Ineffabilis Deus) stated, in part (emphasis added):
To the honor of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, to the exaltation of the Catholic Faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and by Our own, We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine, which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and on this account must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful. [DS 2803]
As Catholic theologian, Ludwig Ott, notes:
c) Mary’s freedom from original sin was an unmerited gift of God (gratia), and an exception from the law (privilegium) which was vouchsafed to her only (singulare).
d) The efficient cause (causa efficiens) of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was Almighty God.
e) The meritorious cause (causa meritoria) was the Redemption by Jesus Christ. It follows from this that even Mary was in need of redemption, and was in fact redeemed. By reason of her natural origin, she, like all other children of Adam, was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin (debitum contrahendi peccatum originale), but by a special intervention of God, she was preserved from stain of original sin; debuit contrahere peccatum, sed non contraxit. Thus Mary also was redeemed “by the grace of Christ” but in a more perfect manner than other human beings. While these are freed from original sin present in their souls (redemptio reparativa), Mary the Mother of the Redeemer, was preserved from the contagion of original sin (redemptio praeservativa or praeredemptio). Thus the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in no way contradicts the dogma that all children of Adam are subject to Original Sin and need redemption. (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma [St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1957], 199)
However, the typical Roman Catholic apologists’ responses to Luke 1:47 are not convincing. For instance, Patrick Madrid in his article, Mary, Ark of the New Covenant: A Biblical look at the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patrick Madrid responds to Luke 1:47 thusly:
Medieval theologians developed an analogy to explain how and why Mary needed Jesus as her savior. A man (each of us) is walking along a forest path, unaware of a large pit a few paces directly ahead of him. He falls headlong into the pit and is immersed in the mud (original sin) it contains. He cries out for help, and his rescuer (the Lord Jesus) lowers a rope down to him and hauls him back up to safety. The man says to his rescuer, "Thank you for saving me," recalling the words of the psalmist: The Lord "stooped toward me and heard my cry. He drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud of a swamp; he set my feet upon a crag" (Psalm 40:2-4).
A woman (Mary), approaches the same pit, but as she began to fall into the pit her rescuer reaches out and stops her from falling in. She cries out, "Thank you for saving me" (Luke 1:47). Like this woman, Mary was no less "saved" than any other human being has been saved. She was just saved anticipatorily, before contracting original sin. Each of us is permitted to become dirtied with original sin, but she was not. God hates sin, so this was a far better way. (p. 2)
The problem with this is that Madrid et al. expects us to believe, as being exegetically and historically tenable, the idea that when Mary uttered Luke 1:47, she understood the theology of the IC which would not be developed for several centuries, and cognizant of analogies similar to those of Medieval theologians to explain Mary’s freedom from original sin. Ask yourself this: outside one having their conscience bound to Rome’s allegedly infallible authority to proclaim dogmas (especially dogmas utterly unknown in the early Church, which the IC is), would you actually accept this rather contrived explanation?
Sensing the difficulty with this standard "response," one Catholic apologist wrote the following:
Although the Catholic would more or less be forced to offer such an explanation of Luke 1:47 when pressed by the Protestant, the Catholic would then suggest that the issue of a "Savior" in Luke 1:47 does not directly relate to the matter of Mary's need to be saved from sin. Rather, as the remaining context shows, Mary's reference to the "Savior" is merely the echoing of all the promises God, as Israel's proclaimed "Savior," that Mary finds fulfilled in Jesus. . . . Mary represents Israel, who at the time of Jesus is under oppression from the Romans . . . In verse 55, Mary speaks of God fulfilling the promises to Abraham given in Genesis 12-22. (Robert A. Sungenis, Bible Studies for Catholics [State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc.], 401-402)
In other words, some Catholic apologists are now opting for interpreting σωτηρ in a more non-soteriological sense when used in Luke 1:47; instead, it refers to the eschatological fulfilment of various Old Testament promises, chief among them is the Messiah, and Jesus being the national saviour in such a context.
