Posted on 04/01/2008 4:23:02 PM PDT by NYer
You need to post full passages and entire chapters.
“You need to post full passages and entire chapters.”
If you knew your bible you would know the quoted scriptures are in context.
How presumptuous and judgmental!
Amazing.
Last comment of the evening.
That was rather funny, snarky but funny.
They are in context, but our interpretation differs. And I would have to add some to your statement
” The importance of Mary is demonstrated by the fact that Jesus‘ birth is only reported in two of the Gospels;
Misses the prophetic psalms and words of the Old Testament which allude to Mary and also give her her titles under which we honor her.
But that’s for another time.
Got a link?
“How presumptuous and judgmental!
Amazing.”
If you think that was, what do you think of these?
“It’s all very diabolical.”
“Uh, no. Actually, those words are error and blasphemy,”
“You pull things from context, build strawmen and generally lie about all manner of aspects of this discussion.”
“Traditions of Men.”
“One of your many lies”
There is a biblical principle called “mote——beam”.
“Last comment of the evening.”
Not meant to be “snarky”. Humor gets too sharp late at night. Good night, I’m tired too.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do NOT make it personal.
This thread is on zero tolerance, Any further childish behavior and there will be consequences.
Ah. So Christ needs Mary in order to elevate Him to the Godhead. Fascinating. Error upon error.
If that was the case why didn't Christ ever call Mary His mother, He always used the term 'woman'.
Ah. So Christ needs Mary in order to elevate Him to the Godhead.
That quote is "Dr.E's" own personal statement. I'm not sure who she fancies believes it.
Know this:
CATHOLICS DO NOT BELIEVE THE THEOLOGICAL PROPOSITION QUOTED IN ITALICS ABOVE.
Indeed, we reject it and consider it ridiculous. It is indeed an error ... again, though, I'm not sure whose. I'm not aware of any group which actually believes that
To ascribe belief "X" to folks who, in fact believe "Not-X" is an act of false witness.
("Dr. E": This is a courtesy ping only.)
I would enter here on this thread where angels fear to tread:
Jesus called his mother “woman” because in His culture, it was a term of respect; one could say that its equivalent today would be “Lady”. I’m surprised that this fact of the culture and language use of Jesus’ time isn’t better known and taught among those who read and cherish Sacred Scripture.
Also, from the four ways of understanding Scripture (literal, moral, analogical and anagogical), Jesus is letting us know—(those who heard Him in the real moment and those who will hear Him down the corridors of time)-—that there is a new “woman”. This new woman is the one who will counteract the disobedience of the first creature whom God said would be named “woman”.
It’s in OUR present day culture that one may use the name “woman” as a term of lesser respect; the opposite was the case in the time, language and culture in which Jesus walked among us on earth.
ftD: Those who use argument to learn rather than to control and irritate will easily find that no Catholic on this thread said:
Christ needs Mary in order to elevate Him to the Godhead.
As discussed here the actual words used, if that matters, were
On the contrary, referring to Mary as "Mother of God" elevates Jesus Christ.I guess this needs some parsing: The subject is the verbal phrase "referring to Mary". the verb is "elevates". (And, to be complete, nobody is claiming that the way WE SPEAK about Mary or Jesus elevates Him to Godhead. It's a shame that the quality of argument requires that that obvious point be explicitly made.)
(here.)
Mere grammar makes it obvious that perverting this into 'Christ needs Mary to elevate Him', is not about reasonable disagreement or about seeking the truth. You have to wonder what might be the point of basing an argument against us not on what we actually say, but on a perversion of it.
(For the elventy-twelfth time, to give the 'title' "theotokos" to Mary is to make a Christological statement, specifically one about the union (at conception) of two natures in one person. The child whom Mary bore and birthed was Jesus, and Jesus is Lord.)
If that was the case why didn't Christ ever call Mary His mother, He always used the term 'woman'.
Well I hope I've shown that no one says "that was the case." But would you like to consider a rephrasing of your assertion? Before my second cup of coffee I can only recollect three things IHS said to Mary. Are you claiming that He only spoke to her three times between His Nativity and His Crucifixion? Or is it your argument that we are to take these three things as sufficiently representative of everything He said to her in thirty some years that we can say he "always" called her Woman and "didn't ever" call her Mother? That's a lot of conclusion to balance on the top of so few data.
He always used the term 'woman'.
Well, in approximately 67% of the recorded times (that I can remember) that He spoke To her, he addressed her as "Gynai." But in referring to her in John 19:26-27 the Evangelist calls her he meter autou and when Jesus 'gives' her to "the disciple whom He loved" He, Jesus, refers to her as "he meter sou". So we are left with no record of His calling His own mother, "Mother," but He calls her John's mother.
And I do not know enough about the colloquial Aramaic of the 1st century (because I know NOTHING about it) to know whether ANY son addressed his mother as "mother" OR to say, with every single scholar whom I have read on the matter (gotta be at least 5) that "Gynai" was an at least respectful and possibly affectionate manner of address.
So we have
Yes, I know the site from which those observations are taken. As I stated in that post (#469) - I ain’t listing the link because the pattern is for RCC watchdogs to attack the author and avoid the issue.
I see that my tactic wasn’t entirely successful: the RCC watchdogs are obsessed over the unknown author, avoiding discussion of the points made - which were in answer to a question.
No link provided.
"No, not one" as it says in scripture. God is not bound by our time. There is no salvation w/o Jesus. Even those who physically came before Him are saved by Him and through Him.
Almost?! Don't forget ... bless those that curse you.
“God is not bound by our time.”
This fact gets lost when it is mentioned by those who deny Mary’s singular role, that if she had not assented to God’s request, he simply would have gotten a replacement womb.
The once and for all in the NOW of God seems to be of no consequence accordingly.
He simply gets a “do over” with another girl in the neighborhood of her tribe.
(1) Immaculate Conception
<1a)Those who read the discussion of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception will understand that Mary's sinlessness results from a saving act of God in Christ. Consequently the Dogma in no way negates Her need for a savior.
(You give us quotes from a site; those quotes have footnotes, you do note offer the notes and conceal form us the URL. This makes examining the claims difficult.)
(1b)Since you deny us the needed data, I must sometimes argue generally. A heretic in some things is not necessarily a heretic in all things. So that someone who "introduced" a doctrine was later declared a heretic does not bear on the doctrine.(3)That there was disagreement about the doctrine argues neither one way nor the other.
(2)All Holy
(2a)To take Paul's comment or that of the psalms or from he song of praise in Revelation as mathematically comprehensive runs contrary to good sense and to the plain sense of Scripture: For example: If only God is holy then we should root out every mention of "the saints" (which is merely a conventional translation of "hoi hagioi" = "the holy ones") in Paul's writings. God is the source of Holiness, but He makes those whom he saves and "sanctifies" (= "makes holy") holy.
(2b)Sinless people do not need a Savior.
Well this is redundant. There are two ways you can save me from falling: (A)You can pick me up and dust me off AFTER I fall. (B)You can grab my arm and keep me from falling at all. In both cases I need someone to save me from falling. Jesus saved Mary in a manner analogous to the second.
(2c))The worthy to open the scroll problem: As already stated, the holiness of God, of the three persons of the Trinity is different because it is original. The holiness of all the creatures whom we call holy (and man and angels are called holy) is derivative. This accounts for the difference.
(3)Perpetual Virginity
(3a)“Till” (until) means that after that point, Joseph did “know” (have sexual relations with) Mary. (See Genesis 4:1 where Adam “knew” Eve and she conceived and had a son.)
Sez who? The (or one) obvious point of the verse is to make plain that there was no way that Joseph could have been the father of IHS.
(3b)The "brothers" of IHS. This is your strongest argument because there is not very much authority (but there is some) for "adelphos" meaning something other than "brother" as we use the word. However for this argument to be conclusive we'd have to be able to show that Joseph did not have children by a former marriage and that he had not adopted children of his kin. Still this is the strongest argument on linguistic grounds.
(4)Theotokos
It is hard to take seriously the arguments against theotokos because they seem proudly to refute something we do not say.(a)The mother is not the source of everything that her child is, but only of part of it - her genetic material joins with that of the Father. The genetic material of the father may predate even the life of the mother, but that does not make her any less the mother of the child. (Example: My father was born in 1904, my mother in 1920, but she is still my mother, even though my father was likely producing sperm before my mother was born.) The mother then bears the conceived child in her womb, though, as was said, much of what the child IS is alien and certainly not dependent on the mother. Then parturition occurs; the mother gives birth.
We do not claim in the title Theotokos, that Mary is the source of everything that Jesus is, any more than my mother is the source of everything that I am. Consequently, to those who have thought about what motherhood is, the arguments that God predated Mary, the Mary was created by God, are simply irrelevant to what we mean by theotokos.
(5)Mother of the Church.
It's a similar problem. I read what you write and think,"So? What does that have to do with it?"
(6)The Assumption.
As to the lack of Biblical reference, the maxim "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" applies. The writers of the NT had different fish to fry, and none was giving an encyclopedia of Christian Doctrine.
The phrase "At the end of her life" is unclear. It could mean before or after her death. If after, then it is easily imagined that it might also have been less spectacular than Elijah's assumption, which was seen, I believe, by only one person.
The slam about "'infallible' popes" is misleading and generally meretricious. It is hard to believe that anti-Catholics still think that we think that everything a Pope says, even officially, is infallible.
And again we have the footnote numbers but with no footnotes. After reading DiLorenzo's work on Lincoln and discovering that what the text giveth research on the footnotes taketh away, I am no longer snowed by footnotes.
(7)Co-Mediator
This is wearisome. Again with the "need" argument. I wish our opponents would argue against what we say, not against what we don't say (and would refrain from taking the enthusiastic statements of some partisans as official and formal theological declarations.
As discussed before, there seems to be a duty we have to intercede "for all men". But, of course, no man NEEDS our intercession. Why the duty then?
As to "one mediator" either we have to make an artificial distinction between mediation and intercession or we have to say that our Lord's being the ONE mediator does not preclude mediation by others.
Christ reconciles the world to himself, and yet we are given a ministry of reconciliation. Is Jesus not the ONE reconciler?
Two large thoughts might be useful here. If I may assume that you are a Trinitarian, I ask you to consider that "one" when applied to God doesn't mean exactly what we thought it does, since it seems to somehow include a plurality. This should prompt some wonderment about the word "one".
Also (and I got this from C.S. Lewis) there is some Pauline language about being "IN Christ", an generally Paul seems to have some intersting notions about "in": cf: I Cor 7 "the unbelieivng husband is made holy in his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy in her husband," where 'made holy' is 'hegiastai' and 'in' is 'en'.
(This also serves to address again the complaint about calling Mary "Panagia". There's a lot of derivative holiness in the NT.)
As the statements elsewhere in this thread make clear, Mary's mediationis entirely derivative, is, as Paul might say "in" Christ.
(8)Queen of Heaven
Leaving aside the question as to whether Revelation provides a comprehensive and sufficient description of heaven, I will just say that the pattern of arguments given here is so similar to that presented for the other points that it should be easy to work out the counter arguments.
I must add that I have done my own work on this post and have not referred to any concealed sources. The books I used were:
It smells like the work of that team of Catholic haters posing as a fake nun. To wit:
http://www.catholicconcerns.com/MaryWorship.html
I can certainly understand why someone would be ashamed of a source like that.
What do I think of those?
ACCURATE
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