Belief-O-Matic (Are you really what you think you are?)

Even if you don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought consider practicing.

"True, except by some measure of deductive reasoning. In the Magnificat, I recall she said something about her Savior."

I don't think that really holds up. When Mary said,

Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
My soul doth magnify ["declare the greatness of"] the Lord.

Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo, Salutari meo.
And my spirit rejoiceth; in God my Saviour.

This was prior to the Nativity, remember. IOW, she was speaking as a one-God-in-one-person monotheistic Jew, not a one-God-in-three-persons monotheistic Christian.

As a Jew, she had specific beliefs about the relationship of God to the Jews, and it is from this that the meaning of "savior" must be taken. It doesn't mean the same thing that Christians mean by it today.

Speaking of deductive reasoning, that is the basis of the assertion of the Immaculate Conception. It is reasoned that God would not allow Jesus to be conceived and gestated in the womb of a person who suffered the effects of Original Sin.

Oh, and also, sometimes Mary identifies herself as "The Immaculate Conception."

Thanks for the cordial reply. A couple clarifications:

In His incarnation, Christ was both fully God and fully man. Is it conceivable that becoming fully man was not “spiritually significant?” If it were insignificant, why would He have done it?

OK, bad choice of words on my part. I'll boil this down even further.

-Christ is fully God and fully man.
-He has always had this nature, because as a member of the Godhead, He is both eternal and immutable.
-It is indisputable that Mary conceived and sustained Christ in the manner of all mothers, with the caveat that she added nothing to his eternal nature. Were this the case, Christ would be, in some way, in at least one of his natures, a created being.

Saint Mary had a genitive role in bearing Our Lord as fully man, and in acting as mother to Him as baby and child. Christ as God was begotten of the Father; Christ as man was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, then gestated, borne, and nurtured by Saint Mary. The importance of her genitive role derives from the importance of the Incarnation itself.

See my points above. I think we have one of those differences in vocabulary at work here. I don't disagree with any of this, except to repeat that the "genitive" role should not imply that any addition was made by Mary to Christ's eternal nature.

I’m not well educated in Catholic dogma, but I don’t believe that the Church requires me to believe that she “she participated in Christ's redemptive work in any way.”

This may also be an issue of language. Still, Mary's proposed title of "Co-Redemtrix" works overtime to create the wrong impression. This dogma, and others related to Mary's role at Calvary, need to be articulated clearly and free of exclusively Catholic theological language in order to have any hope of a hearing from Protestants.

Most Protestants to not belittle or (God forbid) hate Mary. But we are very concerned lest she be elevated so high that she receives a portion of the glory rightfully due to Christ, or ascends to His exalted level as an equal, or worst of all becomes a Goddess in her own right. The powerful emphasis on Marian devotion-seemingly at the expense of devotion to Christ-that many Catholics embrace reinforces this. Many Protestants fear that with the doctine of the "Co-Redemtrix" the Catholic Church is constructing a Quadrinity. This may be hogwash, but little is being done to clarify this doctrine (or even the need for it).

"Still, Mary's proposed title of "Co-Redemtrix" works overtime to create the wrong impression. This dogma, and others related to Mary's role at Calvary, need to be articulated clearly and free of exclusively Catholic theological language in order to have any hope of a hearing from Protestants."

Frankly, I don't think I want that doctrine to get a hearing from Protestants--or Catholics.

I was never taught that co-redemptrix thing as doctrine, so I went poking around the Internet.

First, I found this:

"There is a movement underway in the Catholic Church to have Pope John Paul II declare Mary the Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate of humanity as the fifth official Marian dogma (article of faith) for Catholics. Dr. Mark Miravalle of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, organizer of the "Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici" movement, has promoted May 31st as the appropriate date for the promulgation of the dogma, which was formerly the liturgical feast of Mediatrix of All Graces, established by Pope Benedict XV."

From that I gathered that (a) co-redemptrix is *not* doctrine (which I think is a good thing), (b) the guy pushing it is not even a priest, (c) Pope John Paul II decided *not* to proclaim this as doctrine, and (d) this has something to do with Vox Populi.

I poked around to see if I could find out if Vox Populi are good guys or bad guys (dern this failing memory of mine), but couldn't find anything. There are so many groups around these days that you can't tell the heretics from the faithful without a scorecard.

Next I found this on the Catholicity site:

"We had a phone conversation today with Dr. Mark Miravalle, the Steubenville professor who is a driving force behind Vox Populi, a worldwide movement dedicated to promoting the papal definition of the so-called final Marian Dogma: Mary as Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix, and Advocate. We asked him if had anything to say to CatholiCity Citizens relating to the rumors flying around that Pope John Paul II might make this definition this year on May 31st, Pentecost. Here was Mark's reply: "Please ask them to pray that the pope proclaims the dogma when Our Lady wants it proclaimed, especially by praying the daily Rosary during May, the Month of Mary." Dr. Miravalle will be on Marcus Grodi's live "Journey Home" show on EWTN this week."

I wish I could see that show, and hear what Marcus Grodi has to say about all this.

The important thing to take away from this, I think, is that the co-redemptrix thing is the hobby horse of what appears to be a small number of Catholics, whom I suspect of being modernists. I personally do not think they are correct in what they are asking, and I'm pretty sure my late mother (who studied with the sisters at Catholic schools from 1917 through 1931) would have gone through the ceiling.

"Were this the case, Christ would be, in some way, in at least one of his natures, a created being."

First, I don't vouch for what I'm about to write as Catholic dogma, but I hope it's not in conflict with any.

I believe there had to be a reason for Jesus to become fully man. If there weren't, He wouldn't have done it. Based on prayer and my feeble cognitive powers, I believe that at least part of His purpose was to experience not only the Passion and Crucifixion, but almost every significant joy and grief to which man is subject.

And why would He need to do that? Probably no one could fully understand it, but perhaps part of the reason was to forestall any claim that, as God, He has never been in the same situations as men. And yes, some people do say those things: "If He knew He was God and that He was going back to Heaven, what was the big deal about Him getting crucified?"

So He had a purpose, and Mary played a role in its accomplishment by becoming His mother, without that bearing in any way on His being the only begotten Son of God the Father.

"I don't disagree with any of this, except to repeat that the "genitive" role should not imply that any addition was made by Mary to Christ's eternal nature."

I don't recall anyone ever asserting that Mary added anything to Christ's eternal nature.

"Many Protestants fear that with the doctine of the "Co-Redemtrix" the Catholic Church is constructing a Quadrinity."

I will agree that that could be a danger, *if* the Catholic Church were to proclaim that as doctrine.

Thank God, the Church hasn't, and it looks more likely to me that the Modernist Heresy will be defeated than that this doctrine will ever be proclaimed by the Church.

I believe there had to be a reason for Jesus to become fully man. If there weren't, He wouldn't have done it. Based on prayer and my feeble cognitive powers, I believe that at least part of His purpose was to experience not only the Passion and Crucifixion, but almost every significant joy and grief to which man is subject.

I (and the great majority of other Protestants) affirm the Declaration of Chalcedon in its totality:

Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man, with a rational soul and a body. He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as his humanness is concerned; thus like us in all respects, sin only excepted. Before time began he was begotten of the Father, in respect of his deity, and now in these "last days," for us and behalf of our salvation, this selfsame one was born of Mary the virgin, who is God-bearer in respect of his humanness.

We also teach that we apprehend this one and only Christ-Son, Lord, only-begotten - in two natures; and we do this without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the "properties" of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one "person" and in one reality . They are not divided or cut into two persons, but are together the one and only and only-begotten Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us; thus the Symbol of Fathers has handed down to us.

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