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FrDavid96
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That’s my conclusion. I would add though, without the actual pain of childbirth (I never addressed that part) since the pain is a consequence of Original Sin.
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Hope1960
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Ok, thanks again.
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FrDavid96
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Sure thing.
I just want to be clear on this for everyone:
The idea that a woman ceases to be a virgin because of a change to a body part (I think everyone knows what I mean here) necessarily means that she is no longer a virgin is NOT (strong emphasis NOT) a matter of dogma or doctrine.
The dogma (yes, dogma not just doctrine) is that she is ever-Virgin; virgin before the birth, virgin during the birth, virgin after the birth, virgin for all eternity, and this dogma must be believed by the Christian faithful.
It is an important distinction.
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Hope1960
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So, what you’re saying is the belief some people have about a woman losing her hymen, making her no longer a virgin, is NOT dogma or doctrine, right?
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Gorgias
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Well… intensified pain is the consequence, according to Genesis 3:16…
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De_Maria
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Did the Jesus who walked on water have a glorified body?
How about the Transfigured Jesus?
How about the Jesus who was conceived by the Holy Spirit?
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FrDavid96
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FrDavid96
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No necessarily the same thing. He could have made the water unyielding instead of making his body more than naturally buoyant. In other words, we don’t have to say that his body was changed when He did it. After all, he did also make Peter walk on water, and we need not believe that Peter’s body changed.
Again, not quite the same thing. Closer though than the first one.
Yes, His body was trans-figured, it was not just a vision on the part of the Apostles.
I would say the difference here is that His presence on the mountain at that particular time is not an essential element of the Incarnation. It could have happened at another time, another stage in his life, or even if it had not happened at all, that wouldn’t change anything significant about our faith.
The act of being born is an essential element of the Incarnation. And the act of birth required 2 persons. It involves a mother and a baby.
If the mother isn’t actually “giving birth” then there is no birth (again, not talking caesarian here). I don’t mean she has to be conscious either (mothers can give birth when asleep or when traumatized) I mean that the action of birthing must occur. For example, when a chicken offspring comes into the world, there is no birth, only an emergence from an egg. We don’t say that a mother chicken “gives birth” because, simply put, she doesn’t.
So when we say that Christ “was born” we mean just that. The act of birthing occurred.
I want to say more about that in the next post.
Well, we must say that the moment of conception by the Holy Spirit was certainly a miracle and absolutely not the usual human method.
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Inisfallen
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I’m glad to hear this affirmed. It’s what I’ve always believed.
It always seemed to me that to assert that Jesus somehow miraculously appeared outside of Mary’s body, without going through the usual and very human process of birth was (a) to minimize, even trivialize, Mary’s faith and courage when she said to God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word,” and (b) to, in a way, deny the actual humanity of Jesus.
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FrDavid96
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I might have accidentally thought of a way to explain this when writing my last post.
It’s going to sound silly at first, but bear with me please…
When a new chicken emerges into the word, that chicken breaks the shell and comes out of an egg. We call that “hatching.” We don’t call it “birthing.” The difference is that the mother is not involved in any way. The mother chicken does not “give birth” nor is the chick “born of the chicken”
Our theology of the Incarnation, and even our most authoritative, dogmatic Christian beliefs is that Christ was born. That’s not an accident. We must say that He was born. He did not just appear in the world. Being born is an essential stage in human life. If we were to deny that He was born then we deny our entire faith. Indeed the words “of the virgin” are meaningless, utterly meaningless until we put them together and make the sentence “He was born of the Virgin.”
For a human being to be born, that requires both the child and the mother. Yes, there can be some a-typical examples, such as a caesarian birth or a traumatized mother who dies and yet the child is still brought-forth a few minutes later—let’s dismiss those for the sake of discussion since no one is proposing any such thing.
What I am getting at here is that if we say that the part of the act of giving birth did not occur, then we say that the birth itself did not occur.
In the Creeds we say that “He was born of the Virgin”
I think that it’s possible to get so caught-up in an unnecessary qualification of the word virgin that we overlook the first part of the sentence “He was born.”
It’s going to sound silly at first, but bear with me please…
When a new chicken emerges into the word, that chicken breaks the shell and comes out of an egg. We call that “hatching.” We don’t call it “birthing.” The difference is that the mother is not involved in any way. The mother chicken does not “give birth” nor is the chick “born of the chicken”
Our theology of the Incarnation, and even our most authoritative, dogmatic Christian beliefs is that Christ was born. That’s not an accident. We must say that He was born. He did not just appear in the world. Being born is an essential stage in human life. If we were to deny that He was born then we deny our entire faith. Indeed the words “of the virgin” are meaningless, utterly meaningless until we put them together and make the sentence “He was born of the Virgin.”
For a human being to be born, that requires both the child and the mother. Yes, there can be some a-typical examples, such as a caesarian birth or a traumatized mother who dies and yet the child is still brought-forth a few minutes later—let’s dismiss those for the sake of discussion since no one is proposing any such thing.
What I am getting at here is that if we say that the part of the act of giving birth did not occur, then we say that the birth itself did not occur.
In the Creeds we say that “He was born of the Virgin”
I think that it’s possible to get so caught-up in an unnecessary qualification of the word virgin that we overlook the first part of the sentence “He was born.”
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FrDavid96
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I don’t mean “without feeling.”FrDavid96:
Well… intensified pain is the consequence, according to Genesis 3:16…
I mean pain in the more theological sense and the broader sense.
No pain of the fear that the child might not live, or the mother might not live or other such pains.
All I’m doing is adding a qualification (should the matter arise) that I’m not denying the Genesis connection here; that Mary, because of her own Immaculate Conception, was free of Original Sin and its consequences.
I could foresee that, if this should continue, that might become part of the conversation. Rather than deny it after the fact, I’d rather be proactive and say “no, I’m not denying the Immaculate Conception.”
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Vico
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I believe the iinfallible dogma of virginity before, during, and after, and also assent to the marvelous birth as stated by St. Pope Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday, 10 July 1996 “e la preservazione dell’integrità corporale”:Vico:
And I am going to disagree that the biology of the question is not a “teaching of the ordinary magisterium.” NOT the biology questions.
Ever-Virgin? Absolutely yes, Church dogma. No doubt.
https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/it/audiences/1996/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_19960710.html
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FrDavid96
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FrDavid96
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continuing…
Catechism
496 From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived “by the Holy Spirit without human seed”. The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says:
You are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin,. . . he was truly nailed to a tree for us in his flesh under Pontius Pilate. . . he truly suffered, as he is also truly risen
Members note this: the Catechism speaks of the bodily integrity of the Blessed Virgin at the Conception of Christ in her womb—meaning that the Conception by the Holy Spirit did not violate her physical virginity. It does not say (as some will falsely claim) that anyone must believe that the physical integrity continued (ie, her body did not experience the usual act of giving birth) at the birth of Christ.
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brian_custer
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frdavid is knocking it out of the ballpark
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FrDavid96
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It bothers me what I see cut-and-paste theology where people just throw things out there after doing an internet search for a certain text.
In seminary, it was called “proof texting.” Someone has a certain idea and goes searching through the bible for that one particular phrase that “proves” him to be right. Context is ignored. Frankly, anything is ignored.
Unfortunately, in the internet age, proof texting has become all too easy. One need do nothing more than a google search then just cut from one webpage and paste into the other, from whatever documents happen to popup that seem to match the preconceived notion of the searcher.
In this case, the member mistakenly thinks that just because the documents found happen to be treating a matter of dogma that every single sentence in those pages is likewise a matter of dogma. In reality, it doesn’t work that way.
When we look at dogma and doctrine, we must discern what words are essential to that teaching and which ones are incidental to it. What is essential to the definition of virginity and what is accidental to the definition of virginity.
While the Church absolutely holds and teaches that the Blessed Mary is ever-Virgin, before during and after the birth of Christ, no where does the Church teach that it is necessary for anyone to believe that a necessary element of the definition of Virginity is that the bodily parts do not act in their normal way (I am trying to be discreet here. I’ve written the details enough already).
When we say that “her virginity remained intact” at the birth of Christ, we are not required-as-a-matter-of-faith to also believe the euphemistic meaning of that phrase where virginity is used as a replacement word for a certain body part.
We are not forbidden to believe it, but neither are we required to believe it.
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FrDavid96
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I want to call readers’ attention to the words of St John Paul II which were quoted earlier
Although the definitions of the Magisterium, with the exception of the Lateran Council of 649, wanted by Pope Martin I, do not specify the meaning of the “virgin”, it is clear that this term is used in its usual sense: voluntary abstinence from acts sexual and the preservation of bodily integrity. In any case, physical integrity is considered essential to the truth of faith of the virginal conception of Jesus ( catechism , 496).
Please note the two sentences. In the first one, he says that the word virginity is to be taken in its usual sense, then he gives 2 senses of the word: abstinence from sexual acts AND preservation of bodily integrity (virgo intacta). In the next sentence, he is much more subtle. He says that physical integrity is essential to the truth of faith of the conception of Christ. He does not mention the birth, but he mentions only the conception of Christ. That is worth noting. A loss of the state of virgo intacta can be seen as a loss of virginity, but that does NOT necessarily mean that if such a loss happens during the act of giving birth to a child that renders the woman no-longer-virgin.
It is necessary for us to believe in Virginity as including virgo intacta when speaking about the conception of Christ (ie the Annunciation). Yes, that is necessary. We cannot deny this.
In contrast, is is not necessary for Christians to hold that the loss of the state of virgo intacta as a part of the act of giving birth to a child renders the mother a non-virgin.
Although the definitions of the Magisterium, with the exception of the Lateran Council of 649, wanted by Pope Martin I, do not specify the meaning of the “virgin”, it is clear that this term is used in its usual sense: voluntary abstinence from acts sexual and the preservation of bodily integrity. In any case, physical integrity is considered essential to the truth of faith of the virginal conception of Jesus ( catechism , 496).
Please note the two sentences. In the first one, he says that the word virginity is to be taken in its usual sense, then he gives 2 senses of the word: abstinence from sexual acts AND preservation of bodily integrity (virgo intacta). In the next sentence, he is much more subtle. He says that physical integrity is essential to the truth of faith of the conception of Christ. He does not mention the birth, but he mentions only the conception of Christ. That is worth noting. A loss of the state of virgo intacta can be seen as a loss of virginity, but that does NOT necessarily mean that if such a loss happens during the act of giving birth to a child that renders the woman no-longer-virgin.
It is necessary for us to believe in Virginity as including virgo intacta when speaking about the conception of Christ (ie the Annunciation). Yes, that is necessary. We cannot deny this.
In contrast, is is not necessary for Christians to hold that the loss of the state of virgo intacta as a part of the act of giving birth to a child renders the mother a non-virgin.
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Cathoholic
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Blackfriar:
I claimed just as in the Resurrected glorified-bodied adult Jesus walked through walls is unexplainable by mere human reason, . . .
. . . . LIKEWISE is the miraculous birth of Jesus ABOVE mere human reason.
If that clears up my syllogism for you I am happy to clarify.
If you still have an issue with that, I guess your issue is with the Roman Catechism.
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But I ALSO understand we have to accept ALL the data.
The Roman Catechism is NOT describing the typical birthing event here.
This is a sublime miracle.
The late Fr. Stanley Jaki has a brief work on this that is easily readable.
The Virgin Birth and the Birth of Science . . .
https://www.amazon.com/Virgin-Birth-Science/dp/9991461728
But I never claimed baby Jesus had a glorified body.
I claimed just as in the Resurrected glorified-bodied adult Jesus walked through walls is unexplainable by mere human reason, . . .
. . . . LIKEWISE is the miraculous birth of Jesus ABOVE mere human reason.
If that clears up my syllogism for you I am happy to clarify.
If you still have an issue with that, I guess your issue is with the Roman Catechism.
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I understand. We don’t want to fall into a Docetist mindset.
But I ALSO understand we have to accept ALL the data.
The Roman Catechism is NOT describing the typical birthing event here.
This is a sublime miracle.
The late Fr. Stanley Jaki has a brief work on this that is easily readable.
The Virgin Birth and the Birth of Science . . .
https://www.amazon.com/Virgin-Birth-Science/dp/9991461728
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Vico
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That is what I assent to.
Note what I posted before:
- The miraculous nature of the birth is a teaching of the ordinary magisterium to give assent to, but the details are not part of that. I am not going to speculate.
- We don’t know details. For all we know the birth of Our Lord was entirely natural and then all physical elements were miraculously restored in an instant.
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BlackFriar
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