G
Good_Fella
Guest
Obviously Jesus acquired his human nature from his mother Mary, since Joseph wasn’t his real father. But neither was he two persons: one divine and the other human occupying one body. Jesus was one divine person in the flesh - God made man by the Blessed Virgin Mary. God acquired His human attributes through Mary. And since her Son is a divine person, the Catholic Church has designated Mary to be the Mother of God. She conceived and begot God incarnate. The Holy Trinity is a triad of three distinct persons but, nonetheless, an undivided unity in essence and substance. So Mary does not have to conceive all three Persons to be the Mother of God. Still, many Protestants do object by arguing that Mary was the mother of only the human Jesus. But, as I said, his humanity was an attribute of his. Mothers do not conceive and give birth to attributes, but to individual persons. So these objectors are left to decide whether Jesus was a divine person or a human creature. Certainly, our Lord couldn’t be the latter, since he was conceived by the Holy Spirit - not by the seed of Joseph. What logically follows is that by denying Mary her Divine Maternity, one denies the divinity of Christ - unless he really is two persons (the Nestorian heresy) which is an ontological, though not psychological, impossibility, or a man assumed by the Divine Word and adopted by God (the heresy of Adoptionism). Or Jesus was the son of a carpenter who was possessed by the Divine Logos..
Follow up question:
If Jesus is fully God and yet fully man, from whom did he inherit His human nature if not from Mary?
St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was a disciple of the apostle John. This is how he perceived Jesus to be.
“There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made;** God existing in flesh**; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first possible and then impossible, even Jesus Christ our Lord."
To the Ephesians, 7 (c. A.D. 110)
What’s impossible for the rational mind to conceive? The Incarnation.
"But why is this honour done me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
Luke 1, 43
:heaven: