[nanetteclaret]

Most Christians know that God “causes to begin.” He is the Creator, after all. Women carry the baby or in this case, Mary was Theotokos, Greek for “God-bearer,” hence, “Mother (bearer or carrier) of God (Second Person of the Trinity).

[CynicalBear]

How interesting that Catholics say that but not even the Holy Spirit inspired anyone to write anything like that.

[Springfield Reformer]

The problem is ontology.  Human parents beget human children. One kind of something generates more of the same kind. Unless one is prepared to hear the word "mother" strictly as carrier of a pregnancy, other meanings will dominate the understanding. A mother and father are the proximate cause of the child coming into being.  But Mary is not the cause of Jesus, in His divine nature, coming into being.  She is only causal to Jesus' human nature coming into being.  None of that refinement is captured in "Mother of God."  No human can be in a paternal or maternal relationship with God.  Not in the generative sense.

Which is why this is one of the stupidest arguments going on these pages.  I don't know of anyone here who is teaching that God came from Mary in the generative sense. And neither side, Catholic or Protestant, is contesting the Christological issue either. Not really.  Both sides believe Jesus is God, in the sense that He possesses a divine nature that is fully God. Neither side denies that He is fully human, in that whatever a mother can give to the humanity of a new child, Mary gave that to Jesus.  And neither side denies that Jesus possesses both these natures in the seamless unity of a single Person.

But saying "Mother of God" crashes through all those careful qualifications like a bull in a china shop.  I have Catholic relatives who really believe Mary should be regarded as deity. Yes, I know that doesn't make sense, but it is an inevitable consequence of reckless language.  This is the very thing that Nestorius warned and worried about. From the beginning we have all (except for a few) been on the same page in terms of Christology.  It's the language that's the problem. It's a slam dunk to produce confusion, to mix up divine essence, which can have no mother, with human essence, which normally does have a mother, in the generative sense, and in Jesus you have both going on.

So what I wish, for purposes of this one argument, is that we could avoid the tragedy of misunderstanding.  Accusations among one's fellow Trinitarians are not productive.  They just deepen the misunderstanding.  The reaction against "Mother of God" is not in the least directed against Mary, but is a legitimate and long-standing concern raised against the false identification of Mary as causal to the Second Person of the Trinity, which as I have mentioned I have personally seen happen. Excuses such as "poorly catechized" do not cut it.  No one should have to chuck everything they know about being a mother in order to speak about Mary's relationship with Jesus.  And it could all be completely avoided, simply by honoring the established Biblical language, which never makes the false syllogism being foisted upon us here.

Peace,

SR