“Why? The doctrine doesn’t deny Mary’s humanity at all.”
Of course it does, P. Every other human being since Adam was either (a) born distorted in such a way by the sin of Adam so as not to be able to fulfill their created purpose [Eastern Christianity] or (b)stained with “Original Sin” [Latin Christianity]. In either case, humanity needs a savior...except of course Panagia in the Latin way of thinking. Now if Panagia was born either free from “Original Sin” or not subject to the distortions of ancestral sin, then she was not a woman. She was a goddess and her Son not “True Man”. This is of course the most serious implication of the doctrine of the IC, but there are others. For example, what sort of example is a goddess to us insofar as our Theosis is concerned? If Panagia was ontologically different from us and had no need for a savior, how does she teach us that we do need one? Isn’t it precisely the point of the Incarnation that God became Man and dwelt among us? Doesn’t +Athanasius the Great teach us that all those divine “appearances” throughout the OT just were getting the job done? Why would God only choose a human form and not true humanity (another Christological heresy)through a goddess if more direct divine intervention wasn’t working. And why would some “goddess” do any good at all? Another IC problem is this whole Co-Redemptrix thing which logically follows from a notion that Panagia was ontologically different from the rest of humanity. It also, sadly, leads some beyond veneration and right into worship of the Theotokos.
Ah, but it doesn't say that at all. From Ineffabilis Deus
We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
Jesus is human.
Jesus has no trace of sin or its effects.
So one can be human without a trace of sin or its effects.
So Mary can be human without a trace of sin or its effects.
Further:
A Maxim is (or could be), “Waking understands sleeping; sleeping does not understand waking. That is, the distorting effect of sin distorts the inellective and apprehensive faculties so that the sinner’s understanding of virtue or vice, sinlessness or sin, is not as good as that of a sinless person. Similarly, it is not necessarily that case that to have compassion for the guilty requires one to be guilty.
Further:
Isn’t sinlessness part of the Xtian hope? Do we expect to be less human or more human “in heaven”? I’d submit that we will be more human than ever when we are finally sinless. And similarly IHS is more truly human than I am and the Panagia as proleptically benefiting from the Victory of Christ is also more truly human than I am.
Is it an implication of your stand that sinfulness of some kind is part of the “ontos” of humanity?
Don't think I'm claiming more for this line of arguing than I am. I'm just tossing it out like steak to a hungry attorney pitbull to be torn apart.
The term “Theotokos” is a needed one in order to preserve orthodox Christology, but the Immaculate Conception can spin things into a wrong Christology.
The argument “Jesus, as the Son of God, could not be carried by a woman who had sin (Original sin in this case)”, calls into question the whole Incarnation. For if Jesus could not have been Incarnated except in a woman free of the original taint of sin, for as God He could not be in the presence of sin, then the next logical question is this. What about the 33 or so years after His birth? Was he present in the sinful world then? Using the logic of the IC, no Christ could not have been present in the world because the world was in sin. So you end up with one of the Christlogical errors (which I can’t remember the term right now), where Jesus was not really “here” but only appeared to be.