Mary as Co-Redeemer

[cargau]

Dan-Man916:

The entire point of our faith is deification! That is what we were created for.

Does anyone read the posts on this thread, or are we too busy talking that we don’t listen?

Perhaps, my understanding of deification is different. I do not and have never considered Mary to be a divine person as Jesus is. I have no doubt that Mary (and all the saints) share in God’s heavenly glow, but they are not God.

My struggle has to do with squaring Mary as Co-Redeemer when redemption is a divine act, not a human one.

I believe that there is much richness in many of the responses to my original question but suggesting that Mary is divine seems pretty close to heresy!

 

[Dan-Man916]

cargau:

Perhaps, my understanding of deification is different. I do not and have never considered Mary to be a divine person as Jesus is. I have no doubt that Mary (and all the saints) share in God’s heavenly glow, but they are not God.

NO!
We are not saying that Mary is a divine person. We share in Christ’s divinity. That does not make us divine. We have a human nature. That never changes. However, we are mystically united to Christ and participate in his divinty.
There is a world of difference here.

My struggle has to do with squaring Mary as Co-Redeemer when redemption is a divine act, not a human one.

Redemption is both a divine and human act.
It is divine in that Jesus is fully divine. It is human in that Jesus is fully human. That is the significance of the Incarnation.
And because we share in Christ’s role as Priest, Prophet, and King, we get to share in that redemption. We don’t take Jesus’ place. We are able participate in a subordinate way through our own offerings, prayers, sacrifices, and sufferings.

In Mary’s case, she participated by saying Yes to God when the Angel Gabriel came to her.

As the commercial on TV says, “That’s the power of Yes”!

I believe that there is much richness in many of the responses to my original question but suggesting that Mary is divine seems pretty close to heresy!

It would be heresy. Mary IS NOT DIVINE! Catholics DO NOT believe Mary is divine.

To share in Christ’s divinity does not mean we lose our human nature. If you can, please take a look at the Catechism that Dave posted. Hopefully that explains it better.

 

[Aquarius]

Pjs2ejs:

Interesting thread - Let’s start of with the deification of Mary. There are a few Catholics out there who do go a little far with the co-redemtrix thing. But it is very few. What Mary’s involvement as co-redeemer means, as far as I know, is that she played a crucial role in the redemption of the world. She said “Yes”. She could have said “No”. She accepted God’s invitation to be the mother of the Lord.

Now Co-redemtrix does not mean “the same as Jesus”. It is kind of like the co-pilot in a plane. There is the Pilot and then his assistant, the co-pilot.

As far as the analogy of the soldier, the mother would have not known what the son was going to do, nor was she visited by an angel at the son’s conception. Mary had knowledge and accepted her calling. But, I’m sure that the mother would be respected for having a brave son.

Does that mean Peter and Paul and a few others would also qualify as co-redeemers?

 

[Matt16_18]

cargau:

Perhaps, my understanding of deification is different.

Have you ever meditated on what it means to partake in the divine nature? May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.
2Peter 2:1-4

CCC 398 … Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.

Theosis, also called divinization or deification, is the process of becoming more like God and more united with God. This “becoming more like God” is to be understood as becoming more like Jesus Christ (who is God), not as the wish for power and knowledge that motivated Adam and Eve to sin. Theosis is the goal of the Christian life. It means becoming all that people were originally created to be. It is not something to wait for passively, but something to be taken by force, by hard work done in one’s soul.
Wikipedia

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Aquarius:

Does that mean Peter and Paul and a few others would also qualify as co-redeemers?

I certainly think so. Yet, Mary had a unique role. For one, she did not deny her son three times as Peter did, nor did she help to persecute Christians as Paul did. Neither Peter nor Paul was the “new Eve” as Mary was.

Isn’t Paul a co-savior? “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” (1 Cor 9:22)

St. Paul here tells us he saved some. Does this diminish Jesus as the Savior? Or does Paul mean in the sense that he is co-worker with our Lord?

In a similar way, we may speak of the co-operation of Mary with our Lord in the redemption of all mankind. We find that Eve’s sinfulness contributed to the fall of Adam, and as a consequence, the fall of all humanity. So too, God chose that the knot that Eve tied for all mankind is in some mystical way, untied through Mary’s freewill co-operation with our Redeemer.

God could have poofed Jesus to us as fully grown Incarnate Word, right before his baptism. He didn’t. Have you ever wondered why? Catholics have been wondering why for 2000 years, and we consistently insist that it had something to do with Mary’s unique role in the salvation of all mankind.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Daniel Marsh:

Maybe it is time the church to dump Latin, and speak Greek

or maybe English, Spanish, German, French, etc.,

We speak Greek already (Greek Catholic Church), Coptic (Coptic Catholic Church) Aramaic (Maronite Catholic Church), Syriac (Syriac Catholic Church), and so on…

The reason the Latin Rite Church’s official language today is still Latin is specifically so our doctrines won’t change.

And as I sit here listening to Gregorian Chant I can’t imagine why someone would want us to dump the most important language in Western civilization besides maybe Greek.

 

[Todd_Easton]

If redeeming the world was a crime, then Mary would be considered an accessory of the Redemption because, although she didn’t do the actual redeeming herself, she did conspire with and aided and abetted our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and so she is a Co-Redeemer.

 

[cargau]

Dan-Man916:

Yes, exactly what Dave said, is what i was referring to.
We don’t become gods. We share in Christ’s divinity.

This gets me back to the original point I made that no one commented on.

If we are One Body of Christ, and we share in His role as Priest, Prophet, and King, that means that we will reign with him (King), we are to preach the gospel (Prophet), and we are also to share in his unique sacrifice, share in his unique mediation to the Father, and share in His unique redemption on the cross. These are all priestly roles.

No one is saying that we take Christ’s place. It is not an either-or.

If we are One Body, that means it is a “Jesus-and”.

I was hoping we could talk about what it means to be the Body of Christ, so that it would hopefully shed some light on how we all share in Christ’s work of redemption, and are all in a certain way co-redeemers.

Unfortunately, some people are offended by the term because they mistakenly think it puts us or Mary on equal footing with Jesus. It does not.

It’s really all about what it means to be Priest, Prophet, and King; incorporated into the Body of Christ through faith and Baptism.

The answer is to be found in there.

We become one with Christ because of His redemption, not anything we accomplished. Washed in the blood of Christ, we unite ourselves to Him.

If we are to be co-rdeemers because we share in the sacred mystery, it is because of the sacrifice of Calvary. That is my struggle with this whole thing. If redeeming is a verb, an action must take place that merits the definition of the word “to redeem”.

To the best of my knowledge, I have personally done no redeeming in the salvific sense. I have participated in learning and spreading the Gospel in my own feeble way but that does not (in my opinion), rise to the level of redemption.

Being a part of the Body of Christ does not infer that we do everthing Christ did or will do. The foot does not speak. The arm does not think, The eyes do not taste, etc. As the body of Christ, we share in the divinity but we are not divine.

When I speak of Mary being deified, I refer to her being perceived as a divine person like Christ. I don’t believe the Church teaches that and I would be reticent to believe it.

You say that “some people are offended by the term because they mistakenly think it puts us or Mary on equal footing with Jesus. It does not.”

If we are to deify Mary, there is a real danger that she will be perceived as being equal to Jesus. I am not offended, but if this is the premise, it is error and should be corrected.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

If we are to deify Mary…

We do not, nor cannot deify anything. In the sense that St. Peter, St. Athanasius, St. Thomas Aquinas, et. al., assert, God deifies by making us what Scripture calls “partakers of the divine nature” or “holy ones.”

 

[Dan-Man916]

cargau:

We become one with Christ because of His redemption, not anything we accomplished. Washed in the blood of Christ, we unite ourselves to Him./.quote]
No one is saying that we become One by our own accomplishments. Any good work we do is preceded by grace and is accompanied by grace. All faith and good works are performed with divine assitance.

If we are to be co-rdeemers because we share in the sacred mystery, it is because of the sacrifice of Calvary.

Yes, of course.

To the best of my knowledge, I have personally done no redeeming in the salvific sense. I have participated in learning and spreading the Gospel in my own feeble way but that does not (in my opinion), rise to the level of redemption.

What you have done is participated in God’s mandate to go and preach. That is cooperating in God’s plan of salvation. Being a co-redeemer means we cooperate with God through our free will assent to His will. We can unite our good works, prayers, sufferings, and offering in union with Christ’s sole Sacrifice. It’s like jumping on the bandwagon and adding to it. A paltry sum compared to Christ. But it is still offered for God’s universal salvific will. That is what we mean here,

When I speak of Mary being deified, I refer to her being perceived as a divine person like Christ. I don’t believe the Church teaches that and I would be reticent to believe it.

Correct. The Church does not teach that she is divine. Being a co-redemptrix is not mean to be taken as Mary being divine.
It is meant in reference to Mary’s cooperation in God’s plan of salvation. Mary didn’t do the saving. But she cooperated with God’s plan to redeem all men.

If we are to deify Mary, there is a real danger that she will be perceived as being equal to Jesus. I am not offended, but if this is the premise, it is error and should be corrected.

That is why it is important to understand what the terms mean.

 

[cargau]

Theosis, also called divinization or deification, is the process of becoming more like God and more united with God. This “becoming more like God” is to be understood as becoming more like Jesus Christ (who is God), not as the wish for power and knowledge that motivated Adam and Eve to sin. Theosis is the goal of the Christian life. It means becoming all that people were originally created to be. It is not something to wait for passively, but something to be taken by force, by hard work done in one’s soul.

Becoming more like God is not the same as becoming God. When I was a child I wanted to be more like my father. That didn’t mean that I became my father. It was more a case that I was to imitate all that was good about him and thus be more like him.

The dictionary defines deification as…

deify

v 1: consider as a god or god-like; “These young men deify financial success” 2: exalt to the position of a God; “the people deified their King”

That seems pretty clear. Sharing in Christ’s divinity doesn’t equate to being a divine person. God willing, when I get to heaven, I don’t expect to be exalted to the position of God.

If I have misinterpreted, please forgive me…

 

[Dan-Man916]

cargau,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosis

Wikipedia’s entry on theosis talks about the differences between the Protestant notion of theosis, the Orthodox and Catholic doctrines, and the Mormon idea of theosis.

The entry under the Orthodox theology is a pretty good summation, IMO.

This may serve as a comparison for you.

 

[Matt16_18]

cargau:

Becoming more like God is not the same as becoming God. When I was a child I wanted to be more like my father. That didn’t mean that I became my father. It was more a case that I was to imitate all that was good about him and thus be more like him.

That is not really a good analogy because both you and your father possess a common human nature regardless of whether or not you desire to imitate the actions of your father. Christianity teaches something radical, that a human being with a human nature can partake of the divine nature of God. Christians don’t just imitate the loving actions of God as human beings mimicking God, we actually partake of the divine nature of God through the God-Man and manifest supernatural love.

 

[cargau]

OK, if partaking in a divine nature is different than assuming the divine nature, please explain.

Also, is it correct to state that by “partaking” in Christ’s nature, we are in effect deified?

This may seem a trivial distinction to you but it will help me to understand.

 

[Dan-Man916]

We do not assume a divine nature. We are human, we have a human nature, and never assume a human nature.

Wikipedia says it well here:

since God and humanity are more than a similarity in Christ but rather a true union, Christians’ lives are more than mere imitation and are rather a union with the life of God Himself: so that, the one who is working out salvation, is united with God working within the penitent both to will and to do that which pleases God

because Christ’s human nature is distinct from his divine nature, he retains 2 natures, yet the 2 are perfectly united.
That is why the Incarnation is SO important. It is our promise that our human nature will be united to the Divine nature so that in the Unity of the Trinity, we really do share in the Unity of God but yet retain our distinct nature.

In short, to partake in the Divine nature is to participate in the mutial indwelling of the Trinity. This is called Perichoresis, or Circumincession.
See the part under Mutual indwelling in the Wikipedia entry on the Trinity for a deeper explanation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

Theosis (deification) brings us into that inner life of the Trinity where we can share the self-giving love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That is what salvation really means. That is what eternal life really means; living within the love relationship of the Trinity of self giving love and total reception of love.

That is what it means to be fully divinized.

 

[Dan-Man916]

and by the way,
This is why the Sacraments are necessary for salvation.
They are the means of grace by which we participate in the divine nature of Christ. The Sacraments are how the grace of God sanctifies us and brings us into the mystery of life within the Trinity, for when we partake of the Eucharist, we receive his body, blood, soul, and divinity. At Baptism, we are Incorporated into his body. We die and rise with him. At confirmation, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us and transforms us and Sanctifies us.

The Sacraments are the means of receiving Christ’s deifying grace.
These are received in faith.

 

[Matt16_18]

Dan-Man916:

… At confirmation, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit …

At baptism we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.CCC 1265 Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,” member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.