Should Mary be called Mother Of God?

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El_Boy

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We know that Jesus is Lord but is the “Mother of God” title right for Mary? By saying mother of God is like saying that the divine nature of Jesus was born which we as Christians know that its not true. Its the human nature of Jesus that came from Mary so she should be called “Mother of Christ” right? What do you think ?
 
El_Boy said:
By saying mother of God is like saying that the divine nature of Jesus was born which we as Christians know that its not true.
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No it’s not, especially since we profess in the Nicene that Jesus is “Born with the Father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God: begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father”. Jesus has a human nature and a divine nature. Jesus is God. His divine nature was not created, His human nature was. Mary is the mother of Christ and gave Him His human nature. Therefore she is the Mother of God. To insist she be called only the Mother of Christ is to downplay the divinity of Christ.
 
People are born, not natures. Your mother gave birth to a person, not an abstract human nature, after all.

Don’t you agree that Jesus, the Person, is truly God? If so then Mary is certainly the mother of God.

Peace and God bless!
 
Saying that Mary is only the Mother of Christ and not the Mother of God actually downplays the incarnation since it artificially splits Jesus Christ’s human and divine nature into separate entities. Read St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation to understand Christ’s incarnation.
 
El_Boy said:
but is the “Mother of God” title right for Mary?
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Yes. See Council of Ephesus.
El_Boy said:
By saying mother of God is like saying that the divine nature of Jesus was born which we as Christians know that its not true.
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The Divine Person was born. To say otherwise is a Christological heresy denying the hypostatic union.
El_Boy said:
she should be called “Mother of Christ” right?
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Nope. That is a heresy denying the full divinity of Christ.
 
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Yes, she should be called Mother of God, as she carried a divine person of the Trinity in her womb.
The Church has called her Mother of God since the days of the early Church fathers and has rejected repeated attempts to say she somehow isn’t Mother of God.

Catholic Answers has multiple articles on this subject:



www.catholic.com

Why 'Mother of God' Matters

What we believe about Jesus falls apart—becomes unintelligible—when we try to consider it apart from Mary's status as Mother of God.
www.catholic.com www.catholic.com

www.catholic.com

How Can Mary Be God’s Mother?

If Jesus Christ is truly God, then Mary is truly the Mother of God, yet millions of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals deny this important teaching.
www.catholic.com www.catholic.com
 
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El_Boy said:
Its the human nature of Jesus that came from Mary so she should be called “Mother of Christ” right? What do you think ?
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And by the way, as discussed in the first article i posted, this is an early Church heresy called Nestorianism and the Church already rejected it over a thousand years ago.
 
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1ke said:
Actually not a Protestant objection, it predates Protestantism by 1000 years
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I don’t think many mainstream Protestant denominations would deny the validity of the term theotokos. They wouldn’t commonly use it (or its translation as “Mother of God”) as a title, but that ties more into Protestant objections to the veneration of saints rather than anything intrinsic to the term theotokos itself.
 
1ke said:
Actually not a Protestant objection, it predates Protestantism by 1000 years
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Maximian said:
Actually it was Nestorius who raised this objection.
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My guess is that @El_Boy is more likely to be addressing us here as the self-appointed spokesman for one of the Protestant churches than on behalf of the Nestorian heresy.
 
Mainstream protestantism doesn’t dispute that Mary is the mother of God. Luther certainly didn’t and neither has the Anglican Communion. Im not a specialist in baptist and methodist doctrine but I would be quite surprised if they dispute it either
 
Based on the CA articles, it seems it is mostly a Fundamentalist issue.

I also suspect that the OP is coming at this from some Protestant view, given that he has no religion listed on his profile, just joined and immediately starts off trying to sow doubts about Mary. That’s a common pattern with certain Protestants on this forum in the past.
 
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This was disputed at the Council of Ephesus. The term Theotokos (Mother if God) was eventually settled on rather than Christotokos (Mother of Christ). We cannot separate the Hypostatic Union of Christ’s Divine and Human natures. Mary didn’t give birth to a nature she gave birth to a person. This person happens to have two natures, therefore; if Mary is the Mother of Christ she also has to be the Mother of God due to Christ’s Divine Nature.
 
I quite often see this argument on other websites, virtually in @El_Boy’s selfsame words. It’s an argument directed against Catholics by some protestants, though I don’t remember, or possibly never asked, what denomination they were.

They tend to be the same posters who say no Christian church should use the word “priest” for its own clergy, because in the NT “priest” (hiereus) is only used in either a Jewish or pagan connection. The correct Christian term, they say, is “elder” or “presbyter” for presbuteros or “overseer” for episkopos. Is this your view as well, @El_Boy?:
 
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Congratulations, OP. You just rediscovered Nestorianism.

https://www.theopedia.com/nestorianism

Lets look at things logically:

Because: Jesus is God.
And: Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Ergo: Mary is the mother of God.

If you try to only claim that Mary is the mother of Jesus you are implying that Jesus isn’t God, which is heresy. Mary is the ark of the new covenant. The old ark literally contained God just like how the new ark literally contained God.

The fact of the matter is Mary is the mother of God. She literally carried Him in her womb for nine months. She literally breastfed Him when He was a baby. She literally bathed Him and sang Him lullabies. She took care of Him like any good mother takes care of their child. She is the mother of God.
 
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