Replies

Hey, Proddys, is my assertion off the wall on such scores or do any of you agree with me?

Re this one:

The slick and not so subtle insinuation that Mary mothered God the Father is intolerable to most of us Proddys and requires an emphatic distinction otherwise.

Geez! I grew up as a PK. My college major was Biblical Literature with a Greek minor. I attended a couple of extremely conservative non-Catholic Christian colleges and no professor (even the ones who had graduated from BJU) at any time, in any class ever stated that the Biblical doctrine of Mary being the mother of God (the incarnate God of Israel--viz, Elizabeth's declaration: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me?") was being promoted by the Catholic Church to mean that "Mary mothered God the Father."

Of course, it may very well be true that some non-Catholic churches teach that the Catholic Church teaches this, but that's not evidence that the Catholic Church teaches that. But even if it did, what would be the point in doing so as an "insinuation"?

The only point here, actually, is someone trying to propose an absurdity, to provoke an outraged response to it, and then to link that response to the Catholic Church by claiming it, rather than the mind of the polemicist, to be the origin of the absurdity.

You're simply promoting a false distinction as a ridiculous polemic.

I think one aspect of what we’re seeing is evidence of what we say, that Mariology flows from Christology, which has an intimate tie with Trinitarian thought.

We are castigated for following the Fathers. (”Rather than Scripture” they say) but if one does not pay some attention the the Fathers one has to reinvent the theological wheel — and there’s not enough time in one’s natural life to do that.

So naturally they differ from us, not only regarding Mary, but in other fundamental matters as well.

If it were true that we taught Mary as mother of the Father, we would deserve condemnation. They have condemned us in their minds for decades. That’s not a habit which will change over night. I think we have to be patient with our accusers. We won’t reach the comity requisite for useful conversation otherwise.