What you are failing to incorporate here is that the Incarnation is nothing but God in His 2nd person stepping physically into space and time through the consummation of the hypostatic union - like a divine “narrow gate” or doorway to God opening up to humanity. In this sense, note the immediate imagery to the passover and the cross where blood is sprinkled over the lintel of the doorway (the cross).
I notice the imagery of the picture you’re painting might have some attenuated resemblance with Passover. However, this is philosophical sophistry at its best (or perhaps even outright science fiction).
God is omnipresent isn’t He? Hence, why would He need to step through time when He already exists throughout time?
I don’t mind borrowing some concepts from physics when imagining heaven and God. It’s certainly a useful way to wrap our minds around some of these idea. However, realistically speaking science cannot explain God – nor can metaphysics.
The idea that heaven might reside in another dimension so to speak is plausible – however, the idea that God needs to traverse through some porthole in space time is fallacy at best. That idea would abrogate dozens of passages in scripture. When Jesus said the door was narrow He wasn’t referring to the size of the porthole through space that connects heaven and earth.
Let’s not forget that Christ “son of Man” is the Son of both Mary and God The Father operating through the Holy Spirit. **Christ is begotten in the today **of eternity. So there is no contradiction to the expression of ‘Mary mother of God’ since this semantic is a human semantic which recognizes and respects that fact that Mary assented to cooperate and trust in God to “do it according to His Word” (reversing the mistrust of Adam and Eve). But this does not diminish God’s divinity nor His pre-existence in eternity. Mary simply cooperates and ascents to make it possible for God to become one like us and intimately bind Himself with humanity in a way that we can relate to through our human nature - God with us (Emanuel).
I generally don’t have a problem with your assertions here.
God could have rendered her free from sin before the Incarnation rather than made her immaculately conceived but when you get right down to it - its really the same thing in the “now” of eternity. Once you see this fact then it becomes clear that to object to the doctrine while accepting that God certainly has the power to do so demonstrates an arbitrary preference for what one personally wants to believe. Stubborn refusal to accept it is usually a sign of doctrinal bias - something taught by others.
I prefer the term common sense. The fact is sinlessness is the least of my objections. Take the typology of Mary as Ark for instance – here’s an area where I can show the typology is erroneous. The same with the ideas of queen of heaven, spouse of the Holy Spirit, co-redeemer (or mediatrix of all graces), and some of the other ways Mary is depicted. So because I see all the obvious problems with Catholic Mariology I am hesitant to give the church the benefit of the doubt when it comes to doctrines that might be plausible. The fact is the sinlessness of Mary is speculation & there is simply no need to imagine Mary was sinless from birth.
Regardless of how we evolved into the dogma I trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit brought us to the proper teaching.
I just don’t see it that way. First, I don’t view the definition of “church” as you do.
Obviously the terms visible and invisible church do not exist in scripture (like the term Trinity). However, there is ample support for the idea. Church is used in two important and distinct ways in scripture.
First, it is used to describe the body of Christ. All the references in scripture always define the body as the collective of all those in Christ (by grace through faith). In this sense we are all “the church” – our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit.
Second, it is used in a traditional sense – like temple. It is a congregation organized under a Pastor with elders (presbyters) and later (but still during the time of the Apostolic Fathers) it evolved into an episcopal structure.
However, none of the Apostolic Fathers served under a Pope at Rome – there is simply no proof for this idea. I’ve read almost every work from Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement & they simply affirm the message of the Gospel writers and Paul; and never give any indication there was a central governing authority they were beholden to (frankly I think these works are valuable for all Christians to read). The Didache is also a good resource & view into early Christianity.
So under this dichotomy I would say that yes you’re right the Holy Spirit will ensure that the faithful in Christ and the visible churches they worship in will not fall to the devil. However, Scripture tells us even churches will be fooled by the devil from time to time. Erroneous ideas will arise. We have to remember – there is a wide drift between the gates of hell prevailing against a church and simply being wrong about a few things.
I believe the RCC is wrong & you believe Protestants are wrong? Thankfully, at least these days, our leaders take the high road and tend to focus on the things we have in common (and leave us to bicker about our differences). So time will tell who is right & who is wrong. I do believe eventually the RCC will come around – let’s face it they were coming around quite dramatically between the 16th century and late 19th century (until they made the wild declaration that a Pope can unilaterally create doctrine – going against over 1,800 years of tradition where only ecumenical councils created doctrine).
The Reformed churches never really went against the declarations made by the ecumenical councils. In fact many reformed theologians even agree with the depiction of Mary as mother of God (made by the Council of Ephesus). However, I do not think there is a church on earth that is perfect at this point – I just don’t. I’ve been studying theology for too long to think otherwise.
