Posted on 01/09/2012 10:38:02 PM PST by rzman21
Mary was the mother of Jesus. You either believe Jesus was both God and man or you don’t. I believe.
The whole premise for changing the name seems faulty. The answer would better of have been to insure that correct teaching of the nature of who the Christ is would be instead of changing a title from one that is accurate and precise to one that is less so.
If the concern is heresy, I can’t see that changing the term to one less accurate would help that situation as opposed to the potential that it has to lead into MORE heresy.
the reason the title “Mother of God” is rejected today:
1. the historical orthodox Catholic Faith is not understood
2. the devil hates The Church
3. people reject the divinity of Jesus
4. people hate the fact that Christians have always loved and honored Mary.
5. people fail to realize the title says more about Jesus than Mary
pick one or all, but for me and my household, we will stick with the 2,000 year old Christian Faith as taught by the Church.
You are right, Mother of God should not have been changed to Mother of Christ.
I may have not explained it well. Mother of God was the accepted title tell Nestorious began teaching his heresy, it was he who insisted on the title Mother of Christ.
Mother of God and Theotokos is very precise and is in complete agreement with orthodox Christology.
How do those who follow Sola Scriptura and who don’t have a Confession or Article of Faith decide what is or is not heresy?
The following is the Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, formerly referred to colloquially as the “Nestorian Church.”
COMMON CHRISTOLOGICAL DECLARATION
BETWEEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
AND THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH OF THE EAST
His Holiness John Paul II, Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Catholic Church, and His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, give thanks to God who has prompted them to this new brotherly meeting.
Both of them consider this meeting as a basic step on the way towards the full communion to be restored between their Churches. They can indeed, from now on, proclaim together before the world their common faith in the mystery of the Incarnation.
***
As heirs and guardians of the faith received from the Apostles as formulated by our common Fathers in the Nicene Creed, we confess one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father from all eternity who, in the fullness of time, came down from heaven and became man for our salvation. The Word of God, second Person of the Holy Trinity, became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit in assuming from the holy Virgin Mary a body animated by a rational soul, with which he was indissolubly united from the moment of his conception.
Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man, perfect in his divinity and perfect in his humanity, consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with us in all things but sin. His divinity and his humanity are united in one person, without confusion or change, without division or separation. In him has been preserved the difference of the natures of divinity and humanity, with all their properties, faculties and operations. But far from constituting “one and another”, the divinity and humanity are united in the person of the same and unique Son of God and Lord Jesus Christ, who is the object of a single adoration.
Christ therefore is not an “ ordinary man” whom God adopted in order to reside in him and inspire him, as in the righteous ones and the prophets. But the same God the Word, begotten of his Father before all worlds without beginning according to his divinity, was born of a mother without a father in the last times according to his humanity. The humanity to which the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth always was that of the Son of God himself. That is the reason why the Assyrian Church of the East is praying the Virgin Mary as “the Mother of Christ our God and Saviour”. In the light of this same faith the Catholic tradition addresses the Virgin Mary as “the Mother of God” and also as “the Mother of Christ”. We both recognize the legitimacy and rightness of these expressions of the same faith and we both respect the preference of each Church in her liturgical life and piety.
This is the unique faith that we profess in the mystery of Christ. The controversies of the past led to anathemas, bearing on persons and on formulas. The Lord’s Spirit permits us to understand better today that the divisions brought about in this way were due in large part to misunderstandings.
Whatever our Christological divergences have been, we experience ourselves united today in the confession of the same faith in the Son of God who became man so that we might become children of God by his grace. We wish from now on to witness together to this faith in the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, proclaiming it in appropriate ways to our contemporaries, so that the world may believe in the Gospel of salvation.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_11111994_assyrian-church_en.html
Thanks, It was my understanding that the Oriental Orthodox rejected the Council of Chalcedon. Is this document clarifying that the disagreement was a matter of language used and not of the theology behind that language?
Do the Oriental Orthodox now teach that Christ has one nature? That they do not in fact believe in monophysitism?
The Oriental Orthodox say Jesus has One Nature, but what they mean by it amounts to what all Chalcedonian Christians believe.
There have been numerous Christological declarations between Rome, the Eastern Orthodox, and the various Oriental Orthodox jurisdictions to that effect.
Some more militant OOs accuse Chalcedonians of being “Nestorians”, though.
It is my understanding that they believe the humanity and divinity of Jesus are perfectly joined in one nature, The Logos or Incarnate Word. Not that they reject either His humanity or His Divinity.
Your assumption about the Oriental Orthodox would be correct. I’ve spent a lot of time among them, especially with the Copts.
By the Catholic church or the scriptures???
You either believe that God preexisted all humanity, created all people, and was preceded by no other being, or you don't. I believe.
Pardon my simplicity here, but if Mary was the Mother of God, wouldn’t that mean that Mary had actually generated a member of the Trinity? And that He was a created being?
no.
it means what Christians have always believed, Jesus Christ is God.
I should add ‘And you either believe that the God of miracles can escape a paradox which would trap a human, or you don’t. I believe.’
Fine. You serve your church. I'll serve the living God.
Joshua 24:14-15 “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
*Mother of God* says that God had a mother,
*Mother of Christ* says that Christ had a mother.
Sheesh, arguing over a title given to a human being that has no warrant. Mary should be, *Oh yeah. That Jewish girl who had the privilege of carrying the Messiah.* Nobody needs any more titles than that considering that we’re not to be respecters of persons.
It more than implies that Mary generated His divinity.
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