Lizzy Reezy,
a popular Catholic convert on youtube, has posted another video where she
continues to abuse patristic sources, this time, to support the Immaculate
Conception:
PROVING VIRGIN MARY WAS SINLESS!! + why I'm not BRAINWASHED for believing this.
It should be
noted that Reezay demonstrates her ignorance (I will give her the benefit of
the doubt as opposed to concluding it is the result of being actively
deceptive) by confusing Mary being sinless with the Immaculate Conception. One
can, as many Eastern Orthodox and early Christians (e.g., Augustine) do, affirm
Mary did not commit personal sin but still reject the Immaculate Conception (as
did many canonised saints in Catholicism during the Medieval period, such as
Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas).
For a
discussion of Ephraim the Syrian, Irenaeus (Reezay's patron saint) and other
early Christian authors who are witnesses against this dogma being apostolic in
origin, see:
Answering Tim Staples on Patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception
I will also note that Reezay dodged Romans 3 and other pertinent texts that reveal Mary experienced doubt and was not sinless by saying "but Sola Scriptura is false!" Yes, that is true, Sola Scriptura is indeed false (see my Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura) but Sola Scriptura being false does not mean the problem posed by those texts dissipate. Furthermore, while Reezay can appeal to various New Testament texts that speak positively of oral tradition, she is begging an important question: she is assuming Mary being free from original sin and personal sin were part of this oral tradition. There is no evidence for such, and a wealth of biblical and patristic against such.
For a discussion of the biblical issues (e.g., Luke 1:28; purported parallels between the Ark of the Covenant and Mary), see Chapter 2 "The Immaculate Conception: Does the Bible Teach it?" in my book Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology (2017) which one can download for free as a PDF. See also chapter 5: "The Bodily Assumption of Mary" where I discuss the identity of the "woman" in Rev 12:1. In chapter 4, I discuss John 19 and the bogus claim by Reezay that it "proves" Jesus was Mary's only biological child.
For previous responses to Reezay, demonstrating her sloppiness with patristic and scholarly sources (e.g., her abuse of Von Harnack's work on early Christian ecclesiology), see:
Adolf Von Harnack vs. the Monarchical Episcopacy in Rome
Answering a Catholic Apologist on the Veneration of Images
Refuting Lizzie Reezay on the Implications of Early Christians Viewing Mary as the "New Eve"
