IMPECCABILITY
The state of a person who cannot sin; or a grace, privilege, or principle, which puts him out of a possibility of sinning. Divines have distinguished several kinds of impeccability: that of God belongs to him by nature: that of Jesus Christ, considered as man, belongs to him by the hypostatical union; that of the blessed, in consequence of their condition, &c.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
impeccability
(Latin: in, not; peccare, to sin)
The impossibility of sinning. Christ’s human will was impeccable because of its personal union with a Divine Person. A Divine Person cannot from its very nature possess the faculty of committing sin. Concupiscence and actual sin flow from original sin which we contract by reason of our carnal descent from Adam, but Christ was conceived miraculously through the operation of the Holy Ghost. Christ Himself said: “Which of you shall convince me of sin?” (John 8). This word is often confused with infallibility. Impeccability has to do with the will and with sin; infallibility, with the intellect and with opinion or doctrine. The pope is infallible, but not impeccable.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Impeccability
the state of a person who cannot sin, or who, by grace, is delivered from the possibility of sinning. Some speculations have appeared in the world upon the supposed peccability of the human nature of Christ, founded chiefly on certain expressions in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 4:15) and elsewhere, asserting that Christ was in all points tempted like as we are. It is argued, on, the other hand, that as the Scripture has been silent on this point, it is both needless and presumptuous to attempt to draw any inferences from such expressions as that above cited; and that we should acquiesce in, and be satisfied with, the declaration that in him is no sin (1Jn 3:5). See Art. 15 of Church of England, Of Christ alone without sin. Impeccability, or, at least, sinless perfection, has also been claimed for every true child of God upon the authority of 1Jn 3:9, though improperly, the word cannot requiring to be taken (as in many other passages of Scripture) in such a latitude as to express, not an absolute impossibility of sinning, but a strong disinclination, in the renewed nature, to sin in such a manner and to such a degree as others. Eden, Theol. Dict. s.v.; Ullmann, Sinlessness of Jesus (Edinb. 1858,12mo), p. 46; Haag, Hist. des Dogmas Chret. (see Index). SEE CHRIST, SINLESSNESS OF; SEE PERFECTION; SEE SANCTIFICATION.