And around we go!
I mean, when we say "Jesus," how many people are we talking about here? Are Jesus and God two people? Jesus is God, One Person, One Divine Person, one of the Trinity, existing before time even existed, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
At a point in time, approx 2000 year ago, He was born in Bethlehem. Who gave this Person birth? Mary. She conceived and gave birth to a person. She did not make Him, or create Him, or originate Him. She birthed Him.
Would I make it a little clearer if I called her the "birthmother"? I'm sure you wouldn't deny that. I don't think any Christian could.
As someone pointed out upthread, the Holy Spirit is God as well as the Father.
By saying *mother of God*, it makes no distinction between the different members of the Trinity.
The excuse of using the term as a means of correcting erroneous teaching about Jesus isn’t a very effective one.
If there was erroneous teaching about the divinity of Jesus which needed correction, the better method would have been to address the teaching itself rather than renaming Mary, which is no more than treating a symptom at best, while leaving the illness uncured. The problem is that it doesn’t inherently lead to better teaching about Jesus. It opens the door wide to yet more erroneous teaching, and that concerning Mary. It solves nothing.
Renaming Mary as the *mother of God* is not an improvement as it really says a different thing than *mother of Jesus* argument about His divinity notwithstanding.
By that weak argument, of saying that.....
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Jesus is God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
Then one could argue that....
Mary is the mother of God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Holy Spirit.
and likewise.....
Mary is the mother of God.
The father is God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Father.
If the Holy Spirit thought that naming Mary as the mother of God would ensure that correct teaching about Jesus, that it would be the result, surely He would have used the term in the first place.
I see no reason to *correct* the work of the Holy Spirit, as if what He did was lacking or inadequate, which is what whoever made that decision is saying.