Mary Mother of Jesus, not of God.

[pescador]

Is anyone interested in discussing the OP subject? "Mary mother of Jesus not of God".

 

[hedrick]

Which statement exactly?

There are two dangers in Christology. One is to separate Jesus and God in such a way that we deny that Jesus is the Word made flesh. The other is to collapse them in such a way that there is no actual human being.

Historically the second danger has actually been the more serious one, though that may not be true of recent theology. Many versions of Christology turn Jesus into a body, mind and spirit manipulated by the Logos, without an actual human being present. This rejects the Gospels’ portrait of a man submitting to God, and removes one of the major roles of Jesus as a model for us.

Western theology has seen Jesus’ human nature as ontologically concrete, almost a pseudo-hypostasis. I cited Aquinas as an example of this. He explains why this concrete human nature isn’t a hypostasis. I think his explanation works.

I think Cyril’s explanation lacks this kind of explanation for the existence of a human being. I.e. Jesus doesn’t exist.

 

[hedrick]

Is anyone interested in discussing the OP subject? "Mary mother of Jesus not of God".

It's hard to separate that question from Christology, since the issue came up originally as an attack on a specific approach to Christology.

I should note that in the original context, the term was theotokos, God-bearer. I think that term has the advantage of making the identity between Jesus and God clear, without the potentially misleading implications of calling Mary the mother of God.

 

[pescador]

So then we can’t rightly say that the scriptures ALONE are authoritative for the faith and practices of the Christian since the Holy Spirit and the Church are also authoritative for their faith and practices.

The church, particularly the Catholic denomination, have committed many sins and abominations throughout history. Consider the Spanish inquisition and the Salem witch trials as two examples. They are not authoritative for their faith and practices.

Sola scriptura.

 

[BNR32FAN]

The church, particularly the Catholic denomination, have committed many sins and abominations throughout history. Consider the Spanish inquisition and the Salem witch trials as two examples. They are not authoritative for their faith and practices.

Sola scriptura.

More particularly the Roman Catholic denomination all of which took place after Rome’s excommunication from the Catholic Church.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

The church, particularly the Catholic denomination, have committed many sins and abominations throughout history. Consider the Spanish inquisition and the Salem witch trials as two examples. They are not authoritative for their faith and practices.

Sola scriptura.

The Salem witch trials were under Puritan authority, not Catholic.

 

[pescador]

The Salem witch trials were under Puritan authority, not Catholic.

True. My mistake.

 

[Dmitryet]

The Nestorian heresy proposed to see in Mary only a "channel" of the incarnation of the Eternal Son. While She is a friend (daughter of Abraham) of the Eternal Son. And becomes the Mother for Her Eternal Personality whose pure human nature (the sacrifice and offering of Mary to the Son) receives (this humble personality) as her own personality.
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Because the serpent (Pharisee's spirit of self-idol according to Saint Athanasius the Great of Alexandria) lied to Eve that God would be haughty and created the imperfect man on purpose. Then his command would be no good.
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To destroy this serpent-like poison: Mary (New Eve) truly becomes the Mother of God. God shows that He is not haughty, but humble in relation to his creature (creature which is not imperfect). And the creature fully receives God as his son. And God without losing anything in himself becomes his own creature. And together like this through and in the constant presence of the Mother of God: humanity and Divinity work, create and redeem in equality and reciprocal humility all together.
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Otherwise it would not be the true gospel of victory over evil.

 

[Dmitryet]

PS

And finally also Mary becomes the New Eve - the pure land of Paradise (also on True Saturday of Paradise - She is Jewish too) from which Jesus Son of God is taken as New Adam.

 

[ViaCrucis]

True. My mistake.

Most witch hunts and witch trials happened in the modern age after the Reformation, and mostly in Protestant nations moreso than Catholic. In fact under historic Christian (and therefore Catholic) practice those who believed in witchcraft and tried to hunt so-called witches were condemned as heretics and teaching pagan superstition.

Witch-hunting was something Pagans did. When the Saxon tribes were conquered under Charlemagne, and missionaries were sent among the Saxons to convert them to Christianity, one of the major issues that was to be addressed was outlawing the hunting of witches.

The idea that "witches" were remnant Pagans in Europe became a very popular idea in the last century or so; but the reality is far more complicated. The fact is that the beliefs of Pagan peoples such as the Germanic Pagans of northern Europe held a belief in witches as evil agents bringing curses and bad things.

That doesn't mean Christians didn't do these things, it is precisely because converts from Paganism to Christianity continued to hold onto some folk ideas that it was necessary to make it explicit that witch-hunting was murder and the official Church position was that those who believe in witches and that witches gain "power" from the devil to be blasphemous heresy.

It isn't until the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum in the 14th century that we see anything resembling a serious Christian push toward arguing that witches and witchcraft are real (and need to be punished).

But it wasn't in Catholic nations where we really see early-modern witch-hunting and witch trials, rather it is precisely in Protestant-dominated places like Puritan Salem in the New World, or under the Puritan rule of Oliver Cromwell in England, that these things were turned into common and accepted (acceptable by religious leaders).

During the Age of Enlightenment a false narrative emerged among the European intelligentsia, a narrative of social progressive evolution arising from the dark ignorance of the past, represented by the so-called "Dark Ages" (which is a misnomer) and the social and technological progress of the emerging liberal philosophies and Industrial Revolution. The past was savage, but we are enlightened. Hence colonialism, exploitation of indigenous populations, the Atlantic Slave Trade, social darwinism, eugenics, etc.

That continues to distort how we examine and study the past, but even worse, such false narratives do not only distort history and pervert the study of history; it also distorts and perverts how we look at the whole world around us, and especially how we view and interact with one another. The very modern idea of "race" is wholesale the product of the Enlightenement and the idea that the "white race" has a duty to enlighten the "savage races". And that's really just the tip of the iceberg on that matter--and that is a huge tangent on its own.

The point really is this: This story of a "big bad church" controlling everything in the "dark ages" is a work of fiction. The reality is exceedingly more complicated than that--and no, that doesn't justify the crusades, the inquisitions, or any other atrocity committed by members of Christ's Body.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[concretecamper]

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.

Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Mary was the believing virgin woman in whose flesh was conceived the body prepared by the Spirit for the Word. He come down from heaven to dwell in that body of flesh among men, to show them the Father as He is.

And it was the Father who called Him the Son of God, not Mary: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

That holy thing was the body of flesh prepared for Him to dwell in. The Word coming down out of heaven to be the Son of God in flesh on earth was not that holy thing.

The second Adam had a body flesh prepared for His soul, even as the first Adam had a body of dust prepared for His soul to dwell in: first the sinless body and holy thing was prepared, then God breathed into it, and Adam become a living soul dwelling therein.

So also, a sinless and holy thing was prepared for the Lord Himself, in which He entered and became the Son of God dwelling therein.

Neither the living soul of Adam nor of Jesus was that body of sinless flesh, which was first made of dust, and then made of a woman.

The Son of God's body was made of flesh of a woman of the seed of David. The Son Himself was neither made nor created ever at all.

The body of Eve was also made of the flesh of Adam, even as that of Jesus from Mary.

The Son Himself and God the Word was no more the 'son' of Mary, than was Eve the 'daughter' of Adam.

Mary was a good and faithful woman of Israel who carried the holy and sinless body of Jesus and gave birth to it, not to God.

long live Nestorianism

 

[Cis.jd]

Mary was a good and faithful woman of Israel who carried the holy and sinless body of Jesus and gave birth to it, not to God.

So this body she carried wasn't God?

 

[Cis.jd]

I don't read anything about a Mother of God in Scripture, so I don't believe it.

Luke 1:43
I hope you understand that you are actually walking towards the theological reasoning of Jehovah's Witnesses and mormons with all your arguments as to how Jesus' human and divine nature are separated, you are just a few steps closer to just claiming he is demi-god.

 

[pescador]

So this body she carried wasn't God?

Correct. It was God's son, Jesus.

 

[pescador]

Luke 1:43
I hope you understand that you are actually walking towards the theological reasoning of Jehovah's Witnesses and mormons with all your arguments as to how Jesus' human and divine nature are separated, you are just a few steps closer to just claiming he is demi-god.

Why do you quote Luke 1:43? That's Mary's cousin Elizabeth talking about her child, calling Him "my Lord".

 

[YeshuaFan]

So this body she carried wasn't God?

Not the Father nor the Holy Spirit, as she was Mother to the humanity of Jesus, not His deity!

 

[ViaCrucis]

Correct. It was God's son, Jesus.

Jesus is God. Eternally begotten Son of the Father. He is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, of the same Being as the Father.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Not the Father nor the Holy Spirit, as she was Mother to the humanity of Jesus, not His deity!

She conceived and gave birth to a Person, not a nature. She is the mother of Jesus. That makes her the mother of the Divine Person, the Son and Logos, Jesus Christ. She is not mother of His humanity, she is not mother of His Deity, she is mother of Him.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Why do you quote Luke 1:43? That's Mary's cousin Elizabeth talking about her child, calling Him "my Lord".

Elizabeth calls Mary's Child "my Lord". That is, Elizabeth confesses that the fruit of Mary's womb to be very God Himself. "Mother of my Lord" is no different than "mother of [my] God".

The only reason anyone here is taking issue with this is because they've been conditioned to think that the phrase "mother of God" is some kind of false uniquely Roman Catholic teaching that is about elevating Mary to some kind of divine status. The people who have said this have lied, that has never been the case. Further, you can walk right into any seminary, Bible college, or speak to any educated minister regardless of what denomination they are, and if you ask them, "Is Mary the mother of God", they will answer you yes, of course she is.

Any Christian who has put in the legwork of studying the historic theology of the Christian faith knows the 5th century Christological controversies that resulted in the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and that this question centers not around Mary herself, but around Jesus.

When the Nestorians argued that Mary did not give birth to God, but only to a man they were saying that Jesus' Deity was an entirely different person than Jesus' humanity. That God did not become man in Jesus, but that God inhabited the man Jesus. In doing this Nestorianism, not unlike Apollinarianism before it, denied the Incarnation: The real unity of God and man together in Jesus Christ, that Jesus is God-and-man in perfect union and without confusion.

Jesus is God.
Jesus is human.

He is not part God and part human.
He is not God wearing a human suit.
He is not a man who became divine.

He is one Person: The One Person who is called Word of God, Son of God, Jesus Christ.
He is one Person, God from all eternity as Son and Word of the Father; and human by His taking human nature and becoming man by His conception and birth from the Virgin Mary. Son of God and Son of Man.

Jesus Christ, God, became man and was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary as a man--that means God acquired a mother by becoming human: her name is Mary. She was chosen by God to be the birth-giver of Jesus Christ, and thus she is called the birth-giver of God (Theotokos).

Proposition 1: Jesus Christ is God. Do you agree or disagree?

If you agree that Jesus Christ is God, then let's move on.

Proposition 2: Jesus was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you agree or disagree?

If you agree that Jesus Christ was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, let's move on.

Proposition 3: Mary is Jesus' mother. Do you agree or disagree?

If you agree that Mary is Jesus' mother, then let's move on.

Conclusion: Mary is the mother of God the Son Incarnate, Jesus Christ.

If you have agreed with all three propositions leading up to the conclusion, then you should also agree with the conclusion; if you agree with all three propositions but disagree with the conclusion: why?

If you disagree with any/all of the propositions, then there are much bigger theological problems here.

-CryptoLuthern

 

[Cis.jd]

Not the Father nor the Holy Spirit, as she was Mother to the humanity of Jesus, not His deity!

Oh, so there was a side of Jesus that wasn't God?