Posted on 05/03/2004 8:48:00 AM PDT by NYer
Unless you cherish some heresy on the person of Christ, you should technically have no problem with the designation "mother of God" (actually theotokos or "God bearer") when properly understood and the original intent of the creed that used it. The early church fathers were attempting to protect the doctrine of Jesus Christ the God-man. It was not an attempt to elevate Mary to some demigod status.
Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge wrote this which I think sums up the issue well:
The deification of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Rome was a slow process. The first step was the assertion of her perpetual virginity. This was early taken and generally conceded. The second step was the assertion that the birth, as well as the conception of our Lord, was supernatural. The third was the solemn, authoritative decision by the ecumenical council of Ephesus, A. D. 481, that the Virgin Mary was the "Mother of God. On this decision it may be remarked, (a.) That it was rendered rather as a vindication of the divinity of Christ, than as an exaltation of the glory of the Blessed Virgin. It had its origin in the Nestorian controversy. Nestorius was accused of teaching that the Logos only inhabited the man Jesus, whence it was inferred that he held that the person born of the Virgin was simply human. It was to emphasize the assertion that the "person" thus born was truly divine that the orthodox insisted that the Virgin should be called the Mother of God. (b.) There is a sense in which the designation is proper and according to the analogy of Scripture. The Virgin was the Mother of Christ. Christ is God manifest in the flesh: therefore she was the Mothes of God. The infant Saviour was a divine person. Christians do not hesitate to say that God purchased his Church with his own blood. According to the usage of Scripture, the person of Christ may be designated from one nature, when the predicate belongs to the other. He may be called the Son of man when we speak of his filling immensity; and He may be called God when we speak of his being born. (c.) Nevertheless, although the designation be in itself justifiable, in the state of feeling which then pervaded the Church, the decision of the Council tended to increase the superstitious reverence for the Virgin. It was considered by the common people as tantamount to a declaration of divinity. (Systematic Theology, Part III, Chapter XIX, Para. 5)Hodge shared your concern that what is good and proper may lead to serious error. But we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need to understand the underlying theology in its true biblical context.
The focus on the mother is the problem. Who she is the mother of has never been a problem. Sure heretics exist and challenge who He is but we have thrown out the baby with the bath water when we start exalting and worshiping and venerating Mary and ascribing godlike powers to her all in the name of protecting who Jesus is. This is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Mat 7:11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"
You assume a person inherits their genetic makeup from the mother. I would disagree and say the genetic makeup is from the father. In this sense the literal Father. After all the Nicene Creed itself states Christ was "conceived by the Holy Spirit".
Whether it is Mary's "egg" or God miraculously planted the whole thing is inconsequential. Sin is transmitted through the male and Mary was impreganted with perfection. One could possibly say all women eggs are pure and holy. It is the man who is the problem.
Incorrect. The words in Ephesians are thV caritoV autou - "the grace of Him" - meaning Jesus - believers are sanctified through HIS grace. The noun form is used.
The word in Luke 1:28 is kecaritwmenh - a very specific verb form (perfect/passive participle) that you can translate as "is and has been 'graced'." "Full of grace" does omit the passive aspect of the verb form indicating that the grace proceeds from God, but it's as close as we can get in English which doesn't have the precision of Greek.
The word appears nowhere else in the Bible. The Archangel did indeed give Mary a unique greeting for a unique person - the one who consented and was prepared to be the mother of God incarnate.
Oh really? I think God gave us the Ten Commandments before there was even a Synagogue.
Luk 24:44 Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
Even admitting that the greeting was unique to Mary, it does not further require the leap to this grace being totally and completely coextensive with Mary's existence from womb to tomb.
The word does not mean nor imply sinlessness which is the typical RC analysis of the text. Nor does it imply that Mary was made perfect because of the grace of God bestowed on her. Such ideas come from one's theology, not from the text itself.
That's not in the Bible, Harley. That's Protestant tradition.
(BTW, Catholics and Orthodox believe nothing remotely like it. Original sin is the inherited lack of grace, not some polluted "Adamic nature" that is transmitted from men.)
No, but it does preclude your idea that Mary was sanctified at the Annunciation.
Nor does it imply that Mary was made perfect because of the grace of God bestowed on her.
If Mary was made perfect, there is no other way it could have happened but by the grace of God. Agree?
You'll note, though, that it is God's work and not Mary's - "Lo from henceforth all generations shall call me 'blessed', for He that is mighty hath magnified me."
I'm sorry that it worries you so much. We give honor to presidents (well, some of them anyway), kings, and lords . . . surely greater honor is due God's mother!
And while I'm certain that some Catholics may fall into the error of "Mariolatry" from time to time, nobody is suggesting that ALL Catholics EVERYWHERE are ALWAYS perfect in their religious practices. Nothing in the Catechism nor Church doctrine attributes to Mary the right to worship in the divine sense. Honor, yes, devotion, yes. But not worship.
If the moon were made of green cheese, it would taste like gouda. Agreed?
Why do you wish me to hypothesize about something which cannot be?
No, gouda isn't green.
Why do you wish me to hypothesize about something which cannot be?
Cannot be?? Claiming that it did not happen is one thing, but now you're claiming that it could not happen? God created sinless human beings when he created Adam and Eve. Did he lose that ability at some point?
Putting limits on God's grace and sovereignty is a really, really bad and un-Protestant idea. God can raise up sinless human beings by the millions out of mushrooms, if he wants to. Cannot be? I can't believe you said that.
But there is no chronology involved. It could have been a week or a month or years. But there is no necessity in the text to take it back to her conception. That is purely a matter of theological presuppositions. In the RC worldview Mary MUST have been conceived without sin.
And that the "graced" state is complete and perfect.
If by "complete and perfect" you mean it was impossible for her to sin, then, no, it does not mean that. It was complete only in the sense that God, the author of her salvation, justifies His saints by the imputed righteousness of Christ, and briung us by the process of sanctification to a state of glory without regard to our estate.
Catholics don't believe it was impossible for Mary to have sinned, only that she didn't.
This sounds like one of those "can God make a rock so big He can't move it" types of arguments.
Mary was not created ex nihilo, as was Adam (and by extension Eve). She had both a human mother and father. Sin comes generationally through the father. Unless Mary's father were also born sinless, she could not be. And so on.
Since Jesus had no earthly father, original sin was not passed to Him. He was the only person born sinless. He was absolutely unique in that regard, being without original or actual sin.
Of Jesus (not Mary) it is said, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
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