Out of Nothing Everything is Sprung

The virginal conception of Christ is a doctrine that emphasizes the divine Sonship of the Lord Jesus. But, in addition to this, the miraculous form of conceiving the Virgin Mary experienced also teaches us how God always initially acts: He acts on His own accord.

The annunciation account in Luke's Gospel (c.f. Lk 1:26-38) makes the connection of the coming of the Messiah with Isaiah's prophecy of the virgin bearing a son (c.f. Is 7:14); yet, the purposes of God having Mary conceive as a virgin are by no means exhausted by the mere fulfillment of prophecy. Gabriel's announcement must also be heard with Genesis' creation accounts ringing in our ears (c.f. Gen 1 and 2). For it is out of nothing that God's creation "In the beginning" initially sprung and it is similarly out of nothing (i.e. no positive human action) that the Second Creation is sprung in the womb of the Virgin Mother.

With what emphasis do the gospels speak of Mary's lowliness, her humility, her nothingness- as if she were the perfect figure to remind us of the nothingness from which the world arose. Indeed, "Be it done to me,"(Lk 1:38) a passive phrase, is what allows the incarnation to happen within her womb, within our world. Nothing else is necessary in the eyes of God than Mary’s willingness to being acted upon. It was by first regarding the lowly estate of His servant that God then chose to do great things for her (c.f. Lk 1:48).

Is this not a lesson in our salvation? There is utterly nothing we do to commence it- "Our highest activity must be response, not initiative,"[1] says Lewis; we did not choose the Lord, He first chose us, says Christ (c.f. Jn 15:16); "The beginning of justification must be attributed to God's prevenient grace through Jesus Christ, that is, to His call addressed to [men] without any previous merits of theirs,"[2] says the Church. In the words of the Catholic author Evelyn Waugh: "Grace is the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself."

This is why the Church not only allows but compels Christian parents to baptize their infants- even though these little ones be ignorant as to what is happening to them at the font. Infant baptism then, in addition to saving the precious soul from spiritual death (c.f. 1 Pt 3:21), also proclaims the reality that we are all as helpless as babes in the attainment of divine life. He is the Efficient Cause, the Initiator of our salvation.[3] 

The life of God Himself is the gift we call grace, and this sanctifying life is offered to us without any doing on our part. If it did require any good work of ours beforehand, it would not rightly be considered a gift, which, in all reality, is what is (c.f. Rm 11:6). And just as He could make the humble maiden bear His bodily, incarnated life in her virginal womb through her humility, He also can give to us a participation of this same life in the midst of our nothingness.

In some circumstances the Lord even gives this gift of His love to us amid our errors and failings. He seizes us- despite our sin- in order to deliver us to safety. His love for us is similar to the action of the angels sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Because Lot lingered and tarried along in the city, the angels seized him despite his own inaction in order to bring him, with his family outside the perimeter set for destruction (c.f. Gn 19:15-17). Often enough, the Lord similarly acts as that strong man breaking in and taking hold of the house (c.f. Mt 12:24-29), to save us in spite of our own guard.

What is the love of God if not a fire that consumes even the most unseasoned wood? What is the love of God if not a biological conception that is physically wrought within a virgin's womb? What is the love of God if not the bringing forth of His life in a unique way in each of us, even when "nihil est in homine, nihil est innoxium”?[4] For this is the very hope of all Christians: He gives His life to us regardless of what- if anything- we bring to Him!

Nevertheless, as Mary's response was simply to give the Lord permission to work in and through her, so too this life of grace cannot remain in us in spite of ourselves. We do have to passively be remade in it, for, although "man is not worthy of God, [he] is not incapable of being made worthy."[5] This is precisely what St. Paul prayed for on behalf of the Colossians: "We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Col 1:9-10). It is in this process of being made worthy of God that our own voluntary reception of His grace is quite necessary- even if it is, after all, His work that will accomplish it.

Thus, the Christian's life is a participation in that divine action that commences with God's movement and continues with our permitting this to reshape a new image within us- a divine image- an image that was meant for us when He first brought us out of nothing. A virginal womb then was a fitting arena in which the Lord chose to enter the cosmos because it announces to all creation that "with God nothing will be impossible" (Lk 1:37).

[1] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2007), 576.

[2] Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter 5, in Denzinger, 1525.

[3] ibid., Chapter 7. Denzinger, 1529.

[4] “There is nothing in man, nothing that is innocent.” From the Golden Sequence of the Pentecost Sunday Liturgy.

[5] Blaise Pascal, Pensées in Great Books of Western Literature, vol. 33, trans. W.F. Trotter (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952), 261. [#510].