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To: adiaireton8; Kolokotronis; kosta50
This is what is sounding off the sirens: "Since divine Christ was never born . . . " And this: "The Word" was never born. ...

Well, was the Logos created of Mary or not? If you say "yes" and thereby the Trinity was not formed until Mary gave birth, then I have a strong disagreement with that position. I think that all three persons of the Holy Trinity have always existed, never created. If that makes me Nestorian, then I'm Nestorian.

2,786 posted on 12/22/2006 4:30:10 PM PST by Forest Keeper
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To: Forest Keeper
Well, was the Logos created of Mary or not? If you say "yes" and thereby the Trinity was not formed until Mary gave birth, then I have a strong disagreement with that position.

All three Persons have eternally existed. I know you are trying to safeguard that truth. That's not the problem. The problem arises in your description of the incarnation. Earlier you said "Since divine Christ was never born . . . " and "The Word" was never born." Notice that in both of your statements, you used the word "born". Now, above, you say, "was the Logos created of Mary or not?" Notice that you switched from "born" to "created". Those are two completely difference concepts. (Perhaps that is the root of the difficulty here.) Mary did not *create* the Logos. But Mary did give birth to the Logos, and is therefore the mother of the Logos. Giving birth to something is not the same as creating it. God created the heavens and the earth; He created it ex nihilo, out of nothing. But He did not "give birth" to the heavens and the earth. God is not Gaia! (In fact, the Gaia religion errors precisely in denying creation ex nihilo.) Mary did not create the Logos, but she did give birth to the Logos. The Person who came from her womb was the Logos, i.e. the eternal Second Person of the Trinity. When we use the term "procreate", we are using the root 'create' only in an analogous manner, not in a univocal manner to the way in which God created the heavens and the earth.

Does that help? (BTW, I don't think you are a Nestorian; I think you are simply trying to preserve an actual truth [the eternity and uncreatedness of each of the three Persons of the Trinity], but your wording in doings so has unintentionally implied Nestorianims.)

-A8

2,788 posted on 12/22/2006 4:56:11 PM PST by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: Forest Keeper

You're not a Nestorian, FK. You just have to get a bit more precise in your terminolgy (thus your COE courses; your Baptist co-religionists are gonna love seeing you walk into a room!). The Logos was "begotten of the Father before all ages." The Theotokos was the mother in the flesh of the Incarnate Logos, true God and true Man. Its simple! :)


2,789 posted on 12/22/2006 5:10:22 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Forest Keeper; adiaireton8; Kolokotronis
You are not a Nestorian, FK! Not at all! If a fertilized egg is inplanted into a woman's womb and it matures to term and she gives birth to a healthy baby, then she is the bearer, birth-giver (tokos in Greek) to that baby even if she did not "create" that baby.

In a surrogate mother pregnanacy, a fertilized egg is implanted into a woman and she gives birth to that existing life. In the Case of Christ, the Child was not a fertilized egg, but God the Word who humbled Himself and took on our inferior nature (became incarnate, i.e. "of flesh," i.e. mysteriously and miraculously "became" man) and fashioned Himself into an embryo that was planted in Mary's womb and carried to term and broth forth (borne) by the one who carried Him and nourished Him and of whom He was delivered. Not some "new being" created in the womb, but the ever-existing Logos, in the form of man by His will and His work, one and the same eternal God who was before Mary, and before all ages.

In order words, she delieverd the same 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity that pre-existed her; she did not give "life" to or "create" new life, new Person. The "holy thing" she gave birth to was in every way God the Word, (Logos) Who made Himself visible, cirmcuscribed, finite, material, mortal, and every bit human by and of her flesh in a manner that is incomprehensible, inexplicable, mysterious and micraculous.

Not a different Person. The same Person, but with added human nature. So, she is every way truly the bearer of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the most-blessed and Ever Virgin, Theotokos, who provided the flesh of His humanity, and therefore the true Mother of our God, Jesus Chirst. It was through Her, and through the choice of the Almighty God that she give birth to our Savior, God, Lord, eternal Logos inacrnate of her flesh, divine and human in nature, of divine and human will, but one and the same divine Person that pre-existed all eons.

2,791 posted on 12/22/2006 6:03:57 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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