Mary the mother of God?

[Bunyon]

"No pseudonymous BaptistBoard netzen"-------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know if I have been complimented or insulted. LOL.

"So you acknowledge that historically, there is a legitimate, non-heretical sense in which the phrase "Mother of God" may be properly applied to Mary? Thank you for proving my point."---------------------------------------------------------

No, I never doubted you. I am at your mercy, because I don't know enough of that particular history to call you on it. But if it is so, and you think you can rescue the title from the Catholic and EOC and its common usage of the last 1500 years, all I can say is good luck. More power too you, and I hope you succeed.

"Christians should learn some history and properly understand the title. "----------------------------------------------------------------

I am all for that, and thank you for the history, but I think that battle was lost 1500 years ago.

 

[Artimaeus]

Originally posted by TexasSky:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Artimaeus said:

Not one single atom of what Mary gave birth to was, is, or will be God. Mary gave birth to a physical vessel used by God.

So when the bible says the Holy Ghost conceived the child you disagree? Or you have a different definition of conception? </font>[/QUOTE]My objection has been not so much in some of the technicalities which may or may not fit with everyones preconceived (no pun intended but a good one anyway) notions. It has been in the conotations, implications, and general attitudes concerning the use of the phrase "The Mother of God". The phrase seems to be being used to bring glory to Mary instead of Christ. It seems to give her undeserved credit for being instrumental in generating God instead of being a channel through which the pre-existing Logos traveled. The concept of giving birth has a strong conotation of originating or playing an authoring role in the establishment of something. Consider this verse.

Jam 1:15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

While it is technically true that Mary gave birth to Jesus and Jesus is God therefore Mary gave birth to God, and logic dictates that if A = B and B = C then A = C, it does not follow that everything that A implies = everything that C implies.

 

[Bunyon]

One reason I think there has been a resurgence of "Mary elevation", even among protestants, is because of the femenist movement. I mean why would a modern protestant American woman have any intrest in reclaiming a title that has been owned and misused by the Catholic Chruch for 1500 or more years. One of the great accusations of feminist againt Christianity is that it is patriarical. Mary is the obvious candidate to elevate to compete with the all male Godhead.

 

[HankD]

The problem lies with the ones teaching the excesses, not a phrase which is not itself excessive.

It is to me.


HankD

 

[Bunyon]

Me too. In other words, if I were on a modern council and we were trying to decide if we should give Mary the title Mother of God. I would reject the title out right, probably for the same reasons our protestant fathers did. Weather or not I had all the historical background or not. It is simply inappropriate and a misnomer.

 

[natters]

Who was she the mother of then?

 

[HankD]

Who was she the mother of then?

Jesus of Nazareth, James and a few others.

HankD

 

[natters]

Originally posted by HankD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Who was she the mother of then?

Jesus of Nazareth
</font>[/QUOTE]And Jesus of Nazareth is God, right?

 

[natters]

Originally posted by Artimaeus:
The phrase seems to be being used to bring glory to Mary instead of Christ.

I see it from the other side - to deny Mary is the mother of God sounds like a detriment to Christ's deity - for to me it sounds like if Mary was not the mother of God, then Jesus wasn't God for Mary was his mother. I know that's not what most protestants believe when they oppose the term, but it's still what it sounds like to me, and I imagine to many unchurched.

 

[Bunyon]

God the Son was around long before Mary, where was his mother then. He did not have one. Nor does he now have a mother.

 

[Bunyon]

One point some of you have made is that it is a heresy to view Christ humanity and Godhood as divided, or to veiw God the Father, Spirit and Son as divided. Then by your own reasoning, to call Mary, Mother of God would be to call her mother of the whole Godhead.

 

[Bunyon]

And why do you think the Catholics had to come up with the doctrine of Mary being sinnless, because if she is the Mother of God she would have to be or else God the Son would have been infected with Original Sin, as every offsping is from their mother and father.

 

[HankD]

And Jesus of Nazareth is God, right?

Not only God but God "manifest in the flesh".

Mary contributed absolutely nothing to the divine nature of the Logos who is eternal. She contributed in the pro-creation of His mortal body and her DNA which is evidenced by the fact that Jesus shed His blood and died at which time He commended His Spirit to His Father.

There is a way we can associate Mary's motherhood of Jesus with His divine nature. We can say that she "mothered" God come in the flesh (fed Him, clothed Him, etc) though she contributed only her human DNA to Him.

HankD

 

[Gold Dragon]

Originally posted by Bunyon:
One point some of you have made is that it is a heresy to view Christ humanity and Godhood as divided, or to veiw God the Father, Spirit and Son as divided. Then by your own reasoning, to call Mary, Mother of God would be to call her mother of the whole Godhead.

You are confusing Jesus with the Trinity. Trinitarian theology says that Jesus is not divided into humanity and Godhood. But Trinitarian theology also says that the three persons or hypostases are distinct. You are suggesting the heresy of modalism when you say that Mary being the Mother of God is the same as being the mother of the whole Godhead.

I don't believe Catholics and Othordox Christians who understand the doctrine of their respective churches would ever make such heretical non-Trinitarian statements with the title mother of God. But some on this baptist board seem to have no problem making them as long as you are painting Catholics and EOC as being wrong, you feel you are justified to make these heretical statements.

 

[HankD]

You are suggesting the heresy of modalism when you say that Mary being the Mother of God is the same as being the mother of the whole Godhead or the Trinity.

Well said Gold Dragon.

HankD

 

[Bunyon]

"But some on this baptist board seem to have no problem making them as long as you are painting Catholics and EOC as being wrong, you feel you are justified to make these heretical statements. "------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not making any claim or confusing anyting. I am pointing out where the reasoning of some of the post would take us. I have not delt with the issue of how christ is or is not divided. But some of the posters were coplaining that you cannot vidw christ or the Godhead as divided in anyway. If you can't than, Mary being the mother of God, would make her mother of the whole Godhead. I was pointing out the fault in that posistion, not advocating any view of how the Godhead is or isn't divided.

I don't believe that they would go that far in their veiw of Mary as mother of God either, and that is precicsly the point, that is where it would ultimatley lead according to the posistion some of have stated on this board. Now you can withdraw the charge of heresy, if for no other reason, than that I took no posistion in it myslef.

In other words, if you insist that the Godhead is one, and then you insist that Mary was mother of the devine part of God in anyway, you have just insisted that she is mother of the Godhead. That is not acceptable to anyone and that is why it is faulty reasoning.

 

[TexasSky]

I'm sorry, but I just don't think denying Mary's place in Christ's life is achieving the end goal.

I never sat down and went, "Oh, well, see, Jesus wasn't God, so Mary isn't the Mother of God." I also never sat down and said, "Mary is God's Mother so she is more powerful than God."

I simple accepted, from as early as I can remember even knowing she was connected to Christ, that Mary was the mother of Christ and Christ is God, ergo, Mary, a flawed human being, was honored with being the mother of God, when God took the form of Christ.

Since I knew, even as a child, that God the Father existed before Mary did, much less before Christ, I also, on some level, understood that we were not calling Mary a diety.

Why is that so hard for others.

 

[Eliyahu]

Main problem with this issue is that some people cannot think or imagine Jesus is Son of God or his deity without calling Mary Mother of God.
We must stick to the expression used in Bible. Bible just called her Mother of Jesus, because her role as a mother of the perfect human being was limited to the period while Jesus was here on earth, among the eternal period of His life from eternity to eternity since He existed before her and created her for His purpose and she was used for that Creator. I can still believe that Jesus is Son of God or He is in fact God, without calling Mary Mother of God.
The word Mother is connected with pre-existence, to all human beings. God the Son doesn't have Mother but has Father only.

 

[HankD]

Why is that so hard for others.

Because our logic is different than yours. As for myself, although I completely affirm the deity of Christ and the virgin birth, I cannot call her the "mother of God" because, as Gold Dragon and others have said, it implies or could be construed by others to imply that she generated the Godhead in her womb as a kind of godess.

This would have been especially true during the apostolic days of the the Church when godess religions abounded with this same kind of nomeclature such as Isis the mother of Horus being referred to as the "Mother of all gods" (generated in her womb) via her husband Osiris.

So, to answer your question in expanded detail: "Why is that so hard for others"?

It is because the title "mother of God" for Mary does not affirm the doctrine of the true humanity and deity of Christ in the hypostatic union or the triune nature of the Godhead in my estimation and way of thinking.

HankD

 

[TexasSky]

Hank,

Do you believe that Jesus Christ was wholly God in the womb? Or in the temple when He was 12? Or when He was Baptized by John? Or when He went to the Cross?

When was Christ wholly God?

According to God's word - He is the Alpha and the Omega. He IS the beginning and the end.
Revelation 1:8 - I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Revelation 22:13 - I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Also according to God's word, Mary was His mother.

Matthew 1:18 - Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

Matthew 2:11 - And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him:

Matthew 13:55 - Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?

The bible talks about Satan trying to destroy the woman's child.

Revelation 12:4 - And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

(Remember Herod's attempt to destroy the Christ child?)

And the bible links the remnants of the woman's seed to Christ's followers.

Revelation 12:17 - And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.


Mary IS the Mother of Christ.
Christ IS God.
He was God before He was Born on earth.
He IS God today.

Mary was and is and always will be his Mother.

Is she holy? No
Is she a goddess? No

The bible is clear. She was a young, human girl that pleased God.

By claiming she is NOT the Mother of God, we are insinuating that Christ was NOT the Alpha and the Omega. By claiming she is NOT the Mother of God, we are insinuating that at some time in His existence, Christ was not God.