The Ontological (semiotic) Argument for the Existence of Mary
For consideration of Our Lady´s Sorrows on Passion Sunday
I´ve spent hours of walking trying to come up with ontological arguments for the existence of Mary. So ontological arguments for Mary being a sinless, immaculately concieved, Mother of God, Spouse of the Holy Ghost. Because its appropriate for this Sunday, Passion Sunday, in which the Sorrows of Our Lady comes to the fore in the liturgical year, I will test out one of these arguments here.
The Ontological (Semiotic) Proof of Our Lady
(1) If God reveals himself to men, this communication takes the character of a semiotic act.
(2) Every semiotic act has three parts: (according to C.S. Pierce)
a. Sign: This is the physical form of the sign, which could be a word, an image, a sound, or any other sensory stimulus.
b. Object: The object is what the sign refers to or represents. It could be an actual object, a concept, an idea, or anything the sign is meant to convey.
c. Interpretant: The interpretant is the mental understanding that is evoked in the mind of the interpreter when they encounter the sign. This interpretant is crucial because it determines the meaning of the sign.
(3) God´s self revelation must therefore have these three parts as well. The sign is Jesus Christ. The object is the Father. And the interpretant is the Holy Ghost. Pretty cool, right. So how do I get to Mary?
(4) Every semiotic act presupposes an Ideal Interpretant as well.
According to the semiotic theory of C.S. Peirce, the ideal interpretant refers to the perfect or complete interpretation of a sign that would be reached under ideal conditions. It represents the ultimate goal or aspiration of interpretation, where the interpreter has full knowledge, understanding, and context, leading to the best interpretation possible. Basically, when we communicate we presume a sort of ideal person who could comprehend what we are trying to communicate, even if we know the person we are communicating with is not ideal, that they often fail to understand what should be understood. Without this presumption, we would communicate differently and worse or really not at all.
(5) God´s self revelation to men, as a semiotic act, must presuppose an ideal interpretant, either real or hypothetical, some human perfectly receptive to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and capable of perfect human comprehension of the Divine Communicative Act.
(6) Everything done by God is perfect.
(7) God´s self-revelation would then be the most perfect type of semiotic act.
(8) The most perfect semiotic act would have a ideal interpretant that exists or is real.
This can be grounded in the metaphysical superiority of being to non-being. Or simply universal agreement that really being perfectly comprehended by another is better than the theoretical alternative.
(9) A real ideal interpretant would be sinless and virginal.
Sin clouds knowledge, virginity is an spiritual excellence, so if we are creating the super-interpretant, he or she definitely has these qualities, or else a more perfect Ideal Interpretant could be concieved. Ive also thought about insisting the ideal interpretant love the Sign, and this seems reasonable to add as well.
(10) Q.E.D. If God reveals Himself to men, a Sinless Virgin must have existed as a Ideal Interpretant of the Divine Sign.
Or so goes the argument I have been working on. It basically hinges on trying to predicate sinless virginal existence from the ideal interpretant in the case of Divine communication to humans, as Abelard predicated existence from the greatest being that could be conceived. Probably still needs some work. Theists should take this seriously, protestants all the moreso.But I think it's actually important for when we think about the necessity of the Blessed Virgin. She doesn't just donate her pure flesh to the Christ Child.
The necessity of her Immaculate Conception and sinlessness has usually been justified in these terms, that Jesus needed pure flesh, flesh free from the sin of Adam. And we can see the whole project with Israel, Moses, the Law and Temple and Sacrifice as a project to get this flesh, so that God could become Incarnate. And it´s all true. I believe this, and rejoice at her Immaculate Conception because of this alone.But the reason I like my argument is that it highlights another angle. For God to reveal himself, He wanted at least one person to comprehend it. This wasn't going to be easy, 11 out of 12 Apostles couldn't even make the trip to Calvary. And in the same way that The Most Holy Trinity was dependent on Mary for her flesh, I think they were also counting on her for her recognition, or her perfect understanding of the Divine Action. The whole universe was created for this Revelation of the Word, the Sign, its fitting at least one person was created to get the picture. When we think of the great support Mary is in the spiritual life, the bulwark she is for the Church, all stems from her support of her Son, the Sign, in her recognizing Him for who He was, and comprehending the meaning of His Passion.
And for Jesus Christ on the cross, I dare say this recognition might have been as necessary as her flesh at his conception. In her He finds the loving gaze, the worship of the elect who comprehend the sign, and comprehend through her perfect eyes. It's interesting also to think of the revelation to Abraham, Isaac, Jakob, all the biblical stories and law, David, it wasn´t simply trying to produce pure flesh, but also a priming, a preparation and pedagogy for the one person who could understand on that one horrible day, preparing the Mother who could recognize the Sacrifice of the Living God for the Salvation of Men. I think that God rejoiced with the birth of Mary not simply because of her purity, but also because, finally, there was some human who could and would understand His Act. Equally revealing is Our Lady´s understanding of the limits of her knowledge, expressed in her quoniam virum non cognosco, because I know not man, which was the preparation for her fiat, and almost equally for ours. Our problem isn´t always that we know too little to comprehend God's Act, but almost more commonly that we know far too much.
Thomists like to bash on Hegel, but his theory of recognition is really profound. It claims that we can only be a self through being recognized by another. In any role we take on in life, Male, Female, our Family name, Mother, Father, Boss, Employee, Hegel talks about the Master\Slave, we can only take on these roles as selves if we are recognized by others as fulfilling the role. This is so obviously true and a profound insight into human life. Without the recognition of the slaves, the master loses all his power. If a father disowns his Son, the Son is weaker thereby, because he is no longer recognized for who he really is. His Son-power is frustrated, lies fallow, dormant, and wilters with the suspension of recognition from the father. Without the recognition of another, a self or identity cannot exist or it's next to impossible for
it to exist. Thus, part of Jesus becoming man was submitting to the weakness of human form, and thus this process of mutual recognition. If we admit this, then Jesus likely needs at least one perfect recognizer to fulfill his task, and he only got one, His Blessed Mother, perhaps St Joseph and St John the Baptist as well. But on the day of His Passion, they were gone. [This could be another Hegelian variant of the ontological proof for Mary!].
But because He wanted or even needed this, her suffering was necessary for the plan of salvation, as she would have to behold His Passion. The Ideal Interpretant must be there, she must be made to understand the Sign of Contradiction. We hear from the Prophet Simeon to Mary, and “your soul shall be pierced for the revelation of thoughts in the hearts of many.” It's hard to comprehend the strength of her sorrowful recognition in sustaining Him in His Passion, of her beholding what He was doing and understanding the meaning. This is always the case in any trial, and must have been then, a tremendous strength. But it is precisely in this recognition that Mary is the ideal of the spiritual life of all Catholics. Thus, we really ought to seek the same recognition of the Incarnate Word, the Sign, in, with, and by Mary. This is why we pray the Rosary, to seek her perfect comprehension of the Sign.
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SERIES: The Five Ways: die fünf Mutter-Gottesbeweise
The (Hegelian) Ontological Argument for The Existence of Mary
Coming Soon…
The Teleological Argument for the Existence of Mary
The Prime Matter Argument for the Existence of Mary
The Epistemological Argument for the Existence of Mary
This is brilliant in its utter complexity and simplicity at the same time. Unfortunately, those who have hearts and minds blind to Mary will not see this, I'm afraid. It's like banging your head on that proverbial wall. I usually end with "Why do you hate His mother? What do you think He would say to you?"
This seems to align with my prayers this week. Strange how that happens. 🤔
You are ascribing to Mary as ideal interpretant a species of comprehensive knowledge. At best this would be created knowledge, not the incommunicable original knowledge of God. I'm struggling therefore to see what Mary as ideal interpretant gives us that Christ in His human and divine natures does not. It would seem that in Christ we have all the access to both the original uncreated and analogical created signs and interpretations that we need.