Posted on 08/15/2010 3:56:22 PM PDT by TaraP
The Assumption is not a metaphor...
We must be very clear on this point: The Assumption is not a metaphor. The Blessed Virgin Mary was really taken up, her physical body was transformed. Pope Pius XII in Munificentissimus Deus (1950) declared that Mary, “after the completion of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.” Both BODY and SOUL!
This means that her physical body was transformed and glorified (in a manner identical to Christ’s after his Resurrection), her soul was perfected with the Beatific Vision, and she was taken up.
Is heaven a place? In the General Audience of 21 July 1999, Pope John Paul II stated that heaven “is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity.”
In this statement, as (almost) always, the great Holy Father was in perfect accord with St. Thomas Aquinas – “Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us”.
What John Paul II wished to stress, and what is especially important to consider today, is that heaven is not to be understood in terrestrial terms.
Heaven is primarily a state of being and is certainly not a ‘place’ in the worldly sense of the term. Nevertheless, we come to a difficulty when we ask:
Where did Mary’s (and Christ’s) body go?
The simplest answer is: Heaven! But then we wonder: If heaven isn’t a place in the ordinary sense of the word, how could there be real human bodies present there?
The words of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (who taught John Paul II and oversaw his doctoral work) are most helpful: “Heaven means this place, and especially this condition, of supreme beatitude. Had God created no bodies, but only pure spirits, heaven would not need to be a place; it would signify merely the state of the angels who rejoice in the possession of God.
But in fact heaven is also a place. There we find the humanity of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels, and the souls of the saints. Though we cannot say with certitude where this place is to be found, or what its relation is to the whole universe, revelation does not allow us to doubt of its existence.”
Now do not think that John Paul II had contradicted his teacher when he said that heaven is not a physical place in the clouds! Garrigou-Lagrange and the great Pontiff are both getting at the same point: Heaven is first and foremost union with God; secondarily, heaven is the place where the bodies of Jesus and Mary abide, but this ‘place’ is not like every other place we think of – its relation to our universe is not clear.
Glorified bodies are very different than non-glorified bodies (though they are essentially the same). A glorified body does not move and take up space in exactly the same way as a non-glorified body does. Still, the glorified bodies of Jesus and Mary are somewhere, but this ‘somewhere’ will necessarily be a ‘place’ which is ‘glorified’ – just as the glorified body is different from non-glorified body, it resides in a ‘glorified place’ which is different from a non-glorified physical place.
Where is heaven? The simple answer is: This has not yet been revealed to us. However, we can say that it is certainly not on earth. Neither is it within the earth. It is not in clouds either. Heaven may be somewhere in our universe, far off – though we must be careful not to fall back into our terrestrial categories of space, distance, and location.
Perhaps it is most likely that heaven is outside the universe in what some Thomists have called “uncontained place”. In ST III, q.57, a.4, ad 2 (which is not in the oldest and best manuscripts) we read: “A place implies the notion of containing; hence the first container has the formality of first place, and such is the first heaven. Therefore, bodies need themselves to be in a place, insofar as they are contained by a heavenly body. But glorified bodies, Christ’s especially, do not stand in need of being so contained, because they draw nothing from the heavenly bodies, but from God through the soul.
So there is nothing to prevent Christ’s body from being beyond the containing radius of the heavenly bodies, and not in a containing place. Nor is there need for a vacuum to exist outside heaven, since there is no place there, nor is there any potentiality susceptive of a body, but the potentiality of reaching thither lies in Christ.”
This argument from the Summa claims that, because the glorified body in no way relies upon the non-glorified world, neither does it need to be contained in the universe. Thus, the bodies of Jesus and Mary may in fact be outside of the universe, outside of space and time, no longer contained by place. There is no space or place outside of the universe, but this is where the bodies of Christ and Mary are; since they need not be contained by physical place.
Therefore, it seems most likely that heaven is outside of our universe. It is not a ‘place’ as we usually think of ‘place’, but is a ‘non-containing place’, a ‘glorified place’. The glorified physical bodies of Jesus and Mary reside there
“We pray to Mary to ask her to intercede for us as a fellow human being and follower of her Son our Lord.”
Deuteronomy 18:10-13
Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God.
Please not: “or consults the dead”.
Now, either you believe that Mary is still alive or you are doing something “detestable to the LORD your GOD.
I am not lying.......Even the Pope prays to Mary as follows......
“Mary of the New Advent, we implore YOUR protection on the preparations that will now begin for the next meeting [World Youth Day]. Mary, full of grace, we entrust the next World Youth Day TO YOU Mary, assumed into heaven, we entrust the young people of the world ... the whole world TO YOU” (August 1993, Denver, Colorado, Pope John Paul II).
and again here...... Pope Pius IX in 1854....”Let all the children of the Catholic Church ... Proceed to worship, invoke, and pray to the most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God.”
So don’t be telling me I am lying when the proof is in the catholic pudding of it’s leadership and Rome..
dartuser is correct on this one.
The man genetically passes on sin.
This also explains the Virgin Birth. Why Christ Jesus not only was both God and man, but the only human since Adam who was eligible to become the Perfect Sacrifice.
The first sin was attributed to Adam because he knew he was acting wrong and acted on volition to disobey God by acting independently of Him.
Lots of what ifs there ... we will see. And it would be interesting what kind of human becomes of such a process. Im not dogmatic about traducianism ... I just think it explains all the Biblical data at this time.
“The man genetically passes on sin.”
I still have to respectively disagree. If Christ did not have a sinful nature He would not have been fully man in the sense that he would not have been able to “bear the sins” of us all. He resisted sin yes, but was “fully man”. When he said “he who is without sin cast the first stone” he wasn’t saying that there was another without a sinful nature, he meant anyone who, like him, had resisted all sin.
The Bible says ....Eph.2:18, ........”For through him we both have access by one spirit to the father.”...... Jesus taught us to pray and it was to be directed to the Father although on occasional instances it was directed to the Lord as a witness to others around i.e. Stephen when he was stoned. All prayer is directed to God-false prayer is directed to false gods or people.
and again.....Heb.7:25......”He is our high priest who lives to make intercession.”....... If God is praying for us is this not sufficient? Why go To a middle man..... (or woman who God has not instructed to go to)..... when we have God himself.
Walter Martin understood all too well the significance of the action of praying to one other than god:
“Mark this well; there is not one verse of the scripture in the New Testament anywhere which authorized anybody to intercede with God after death. We are told to pray for one another only while on earth. Prayer that is blessed by God is prayer which is suppose to be directed to god while we are alive. There is no authority in scripture for prayers either by, to or for the dead.
This is the work of feminists in the church and it is upsetting to me.
I don’t pray TO my wife. I ask her to pray for me and me for her. I don’t pray TO my pastor, I ask him to pray for me and I pray for him. When my wife dies, I won’t ask her to pray for me anymore because she’s dead. Same with my pastor.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Once he chose to disobey ... his disposition against God was confirmed. Before he had the sinful nature he had the propensity to sin (which he eventually did) ... and during that time he was certainly human. I.e., Adam didnt have a sin nature initially, he was fully human, then he disobeyed and had the sin nature ... and was fully human.
I guess what I am saying is the possession of the sin nature is not germane to what it means to be human.
All tests of genetic law show that the virgin conception should have produced a daughter not a son. “The human male determines the sex of the offspring. His entrance into the unfertilized egg of Mary caused it to develop without the expected duplication of the female X chromosomes. When an artificial egg duplicates its chromosomes in response to artificial stimulation. the result is female” ( animal studies) D. Hocking from his Christology course.
The Holy Spirit who is God, protected His sinlessness, as God the Son entered the womb and the egg of Mary and took upon Himself a human nature in addition to His divine nature (clothed himself in humanity Phil. 2:5-8). There was no change of nature but an addition, adding humanity to His deity.
The female eggs source was of Mary, so Jesus was the real son of Mary, yet it was also the Holy Spirit that generated the life so he was begotten of the Father enjoying a special relationship before and during his earthly existence. Jn.1:18 (begotten meaning eternal generation as the unique son, not begotten as humans are).
Since the sin nature does not come through the female chromosomes but is dependent on the male seed, God did not have to make Mary sinless first. His sinlessness was not dependent on Mary, she didn’t need to be preserved from sin. This is known by Roman Catholics as the immaculate conception and for this reason they claim she was made sinless. The sin nature from Adam is passed on through the man, this is why it was not passed on to Jesus, he had no human father.( in Adam we all sinned, not Eve) For Mary to be without sin then her parents needed to be without sin and then their parents and so on down the line. If one argues that this was a supernatural intervention of God for the immaculate conception of Mary, why not leave it to be applied to Jesus so it will fit the biblical account. If one insists the Mary is without sin then they are denying the virgin conception of which was the supernatural means God chose to keep Jesus sinless. This whole concept of his earthly mother being preserved from original sin militates against the incarnation of the only sinless human to be born. If the Father could make Mary sinless then he could just as well have Jesus sinless- which is exactly what the scripture says. 1 Sam.2:2 says there is “no one holy as the Lord”. In Rev.15:4 we see the redeemed singing the song of the lamb in heaven “You alone are Holy.” In other words only God has intrinsic holiness as His nature. If you are without any sin, then you are Deity. Source: Let us reason.
The only one who could fullfill the Law,was the giver of the Law.The only one who can fullfill life,is the giver of life.
I don't want to waist one second looking in any other direction.
But it clearly states that all “men” since Adam had Adam’s sinful nature. When I say “fully man” it includes Adam’s sinful nature. Keep in mind that Jesus had to be fully man or we would, in our human nature, would have an excuse that Jesus really wasn’t a sinful man like we are and didn’t have the same temptations. I believe he had to have had the same nature but resisted them.
See my post 153.
It’s after midnight here and I’m gettin cross eyed so I’ll say goodnight to all of you and thanks for a great discussion. I love this type of dialogue and I never get hurt feelings and hope I didn’t cause any. God bless us all.
She is not the co-redeemer because she is sinless. She is sinless because she is the co-redeemer. But by our theology, we are all co-redeemers to the extent that we also serve God. As for Catholic and Mary, I have always wondered hoe evangelicals could read the first two chapters of Luke and then try to reduce Mary’s virginity to simply a physical thing, to the lack of a human father. To us it is obvious that she had a deep spiritual relationship with Our heavenly Father and His divine Son. In the person of this simple maid we have the culmination of the history of Israel and this is expressed in the great hymn the Magnificat, of which I have no doubt was Luke’s rendering of a Christian hymn, the first Marian hymn.
We view original sin as a lack of something good, not principally the presence of something bad. Nobody "passes on" a lack, so the idea that it's somehow more dependent on the male than on the female is nonsense. Neither one can pass on the good thing (sanctifying grace) that they should have been able to pass on.
It is true that the Immaculate Conception is not "necessary," but, then again, the Incarnation itself is not "necessary".
If one insists the Mary is without sin then they are denying the virgin conception of which was the supernatural means God chose to keep Jesus sinless.
This is well, to put it charitably, nonsense.
No, in fact, Catholics don't believe in a "sin nature". That's a term Protestants use. We believe that Adam lost the ability to transmit the divine indwelling life of God to his descendants (through natural means) in the Fall. You don't have to "transmit" the absence of something.
Well then in that case there really can be no further discussion from me as that is what I understand man is indeed born with and what the scripture teaches us.
Well stated.
“She is not the co-redeemer because she is sinless. She is sinless because she is the co-redeemer. But by our theology, we are all co-redeemers to the extent that we also serve God.”
Huh? Now you’re saying that we’re all Gods? And we’re all sinless? Here I thought the gnostics had all but disappeared, looks like they’re still at. Read your bible, we’re all sinful creatures in NEED of redemption, Mary included. There is only ONE redeemer, Jesus. What’s so hard about that? If you say that you’re without sin then you are NOT SAVED and I would urge you to repent and seek forgiveness from Jesus as he is the only one that died on the cross for your (and Mary’s) sin.
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