Catholic and Orthodox views of the Blessed Virgin Mary/Theotokos

[ConstantineTG]

This is the whole paragraph; “The Lord God was not required to take on the physical body of a [sinner] to overcome mans sin. Jesus Christ the second person Trinity, God, took on human nature, so He could die for “our sins” as a human, taking the penalty we deserve for our sins. Yet he had no sin, thus the redeeming act”

C, He had no sin. This is what I’m saying above with the Hypostatic Union. Flesh indeed.

You shifted the conversation again. I wasn’t talking about Jesus having sin. You said it was not necessary for Jesus to take flesh which is totally opposite of what St. Athanasius taught. This has nothing to do about Jesus’ sinlessness, but the necessity of the incarnation. Because from your perspective, the incarnation was only a step for Jesus to offer himself on the Cross. In true Patristic teaching, the incarnation itself was salvific as much as the crucifixion as much as the resurrection. All three are required.

 

[GaryTaylor]

You are aware that such reasoning is also held by Protestants…"

It is entirely consistent with what has been taught. Of course there are other theological reasons why Mary wouldn’t give birth to anyone else, so what I offered is merely a conjecture of what the orthodox faith teaches…"

Its utter nonsense and speculation with no patristic writing behind it.

Wrong agin, based on St. Athanasius’ teaching (you really should read this)."

I have it here. CS Lewis did the intro?

Indeed a mystery, but you seem to make a clear distinction between both, as if it were two separate persons fused into one. That is not the orthodox Patristic teaching. While Christ has two natures, He is one person. So how do you separate the divine from the human to speak in a manner that the human suffers while the divine doesn’t? It is as if there is this one being who is human that is suffering while this other being who is divine is just there watching, or totally unaffected. Christ is one person, if he suffers, he suffers."

Your speculating. This would make a good thread though.

He had no sin for sure, but do you or don’t you confess every Sunday that He “suffered, died and was buried”?

Amen no sin. Again your into the hypostatic union.

 

[GaryTaylor]

You shifted the conversation again. I wasn’t talking about Jesus having sin. You said it was not necessary for Jesus to take flesh which is totally opposite of what St. Athanasius taught. This has nothing to do about Jesus’ sinlessness, but the necessity of the incarnation. Because from your perspective, the incarnation was only a step for Jesus to offer himself on the Cross. In true Patristic teaching, the incarnation itself was salvific as much as the crucifixion as much as the resurrection. All three are required.

“sinner” the key word which you refuse to want to see. Which you agree above He had “no sin”.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Its utter nonsense and speculation with no patristic writing behind it.

So does the belief that she is exempted from the Fall.

At least my conjecture is consistent with Patristic teaching, even if what I said itself is not Patristic teaching itself.

I have it here. CS Lewis did the intro?

Go for it!

Your speculating. This would make a good thread though.

I am not. Treating Christ as two separate persons is a heresy called Nestorianism. This is how we came up with “Theotokos”, because there are those who believed that Mary only bore the human Jesus, while God the Word was not in her womb. So to believe that Christ’s divinity has some separation with his humanity is the same heresy.

Amen no sin. Again your into the hypostatic union.

Hypostatic union doesn’t mean what is mentioned above, two beings united. Jesus Christ isn’t the comic book hero Firestorm (he was the fusion of two people, a younger more athletic guy who is his physical appearance and a smarter science guy who is the “brains”, although the distinct personhood of the younger guy did not cease to exist, so they were like a two-in-one). There is one person, Jesus Christ who is God the Word. The union is in the two natures, not two persons.

 

[ConstantineTG]

“sinner” the key word which you refuse to want to see. Which you agree above He had “no sin”.

There is nothing I refuse to see. You claim that Christ is not subject to death, but then what happened on the Cross? Was it just playing pretend?

 

[GaryTaylor]

There is nothing I refuse to see. You claim that Christ is not subject to death, but then what happened on the Cross? Was it just playing pretend?

C do you have any patristic’s to coincide with your thinking.

Jesus Christ= human nature and a divine nature. He died in his human nature. It would be simply impossible for Him to die in His divine nature.

 

[Richca]

It is probably important to recognize at this point that the Catholic Church has never declared any sort of doctrine regarding Mary as “Mediatrix of all Graces, co-redemptrix, etc.”.

This is not correct. Though the doctrine of Mary, Mediatrix of all Graces may not have the status of a dogma such as the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption it can be found in official Church documents as well as taught by a number of her saints such as St Bernard, St Louis de Monfort,St Maximillan Kolbe, St Peter Canisius, St Alphonsus Liguori. I will cite just a few sources from Popes.

“From that great treasure of all graces, which the Lord brought,nothing, according to the will of God, comes to us except throught Mary, so that, as nobody can approach the Supreme Father except through the Son, similarly nobody can approach Christ except through the Mother” ( Pope Leo XIII, Rosary Encyclical “Octobri mense,” 1891).

“All gifts which the Author of all good has deigned to communicate to the unhappy posterity of Adam, are, according to the loving resolve of His Divine Providence, dispensed by the hands of the Most Holy Virgin” (Pope Benedict XV, AAS 9, 1917)

Mary is the “mediatrix with God of all graces” (Pope Benedict XV, AAS 11, 1919)

“Thus is it God’s will that we should have everything through Mary” ( Pope Pius XI, Encyclical “Ingravescentibus malis” 1937, here Pope Pius XI quotes the words of St Bernard with approval).

“for God wished us to have everything through Mary” (Pope Pius XII, Encyclical “Mediator Dei” 1947)

Mary is the “dispenser of all gifts, which Jesus has acquired for us by His death and His blood” (Pope Pius X, Denziger 1978 a)

 

[GaryTaylor]

So does the belief that she is exempted from the Fall.

For sure we can conclude She had no sin. For sure we discussed the after fall birth. For sure She is full of Grace. For sure She is the Mother of Lord, and Biblically Mother of all of us. All Grace did pass through Her. Queen of Heaven affirmed.

Seems we have high percent here. She was completely human held up by the Lords Grace. Hail Mary, You found Favor with the Lord.

 

[ConstantineTG]

C do you have any patristic’s to coincide with your thinking.

Jesus Christ= human nature and a divine nature. He died in his human nature. It would be simply impossible for Him to die in His divine nature.

Aren’t we talking about the flesh of Christ? Again, you are veering away from the conversation. Let us stay focused here. I keep having to reign you in on our topic.

Christ is one person who is incarnated in a body capable of death. Christ as a person suffered. To make a distinction between his human nature and his divine nature is pretty close to Nestorianism, as if there are two beings, one a suffering human and the other and eternal almighty God. The human nature and the divine nature actually works together which resulted in our salvation and the Resurrection. To keep bringing them apart will only make one lose sight of that reality.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Aren’t we talking about the flesh of Christ? Again, you are veering away from the conversation. Let us stay focused here. I keep having to reign you in on our topic.

Christ is one person who is incarnated in a body capable of death. Christ as a person suffered. To make a distinction between his human nature and his divine nature is pretty close to Nestorianism, as if there are two beings, one a suffering human and the other and eternal almighty God. The human nature and the divine nature actually works together which resulted in our salvation and the Resurrection. To keep bringing them apart will only make one lose sight of that reality.

We’re talking about both.

Well if I brought them apart its simply since you had God dead and in sin for a moment. And nope, same conversation.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

It shouldn’t be dogma because it isn’t needed in the first place. The two major objections of Orthodoxy to the IC

1. If we do not inherit any stain of sin from Adam, then there is nothing to preserve her from. Why dogmatize something utterly useless?
2. If the Theotokos is a break from humanity, then what does Christ redeem? If He took the same flesh as the pre-fall Adam, what corruption did He come to vanquish? That is from the teaching of St. Athanasius, about man’s inherent corruption as a result of the fall which necessitated the incarnation.

And yet Patriarch of Constantinople Photius says that Mary was sanctified “ek Brephous” (Homily on the Annunciation). And Jeremiah was sanctified before he was even born, free from any stain. This does not make them inhuman or somehow broken away from humanity as you claim. Instead their sanctification made them fully human by bringing them to a state of original justice. To ask why God did it this way for them and another for the rest is like asking in the words of Paul “Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”