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SemperReformada
Guest
Out of curiosity, why do many non-Catholics object to this title?
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MarcoPolo
Guest
Some non-Catholics have a propensity to automatically reject anything that is traditionally known as a Catholic idea. I’m sure you could find some reasonable non-Catholics who do not feel the term is appropriate and could articulate a deeper explanation as to why. But in my anecdotal experience, I would not say the former is the more common.
And then again, there are many non-Catholics who have no problem with the term!
And then again, there are many non-Catholics who have no problem with the term!
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Zahmir
Guest
Do they? A specific reference would be helpful.
Theotokos=Godbearer
I know that Nestorius had a huge problem with it, but Nestorius believed, essentially, that there were two persons in Christ. Mary gave birth to the humanity of Jesus, according to Nestorius, but not the Divinity of Jesus.
As it is, the title is more of a statement about Jesus than it is about Mary. Jesus is one person with two natures. He is a Divine person who entered the world in human form, fully Divine and fully human. Therefore, Mary gave birth to God.
Theotokos=Godbearer
I know that Nestorius had a huge problem with it, but Nestorius believed, essentially, that there were two persons in Christ. Mary gave birth to the humanity of Jesus, according to Nestorius, but not the Divinity of Jesus.
As it is, the title is more of a statement about Jesus than it is about Mary. Jesus is one person with two natures. He is a Divine person who entered the world in human form, fully Divine and fully human. Therefore, Mary gave birth to God.
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SemperReformada
Guest
I’m non-Catholic and at face value, I have no issue with it.Some non-Catholics have a propensity to automatically reject anything that is traditionally known as a Catholic idea. I’m sure you could find some reasonable non-Catholics who do not feel the term is appropriate and could articulate a deeper explanation as to why. But in my anecdotal experience, I would not say the former is the more common.
And then again, there are many non-Catholics who have no problem with the term!
As you might guess, I don’t accept everything the Catholic church teaches with regards to Mary but I have never had an issue with the title “theotokos”. I am curious though as to why others reject it.
We will see what develops.
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VociMike
Guest
How do you feel about “Mother of God”?
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SemperReformada
Guest
“theotokos” is literally “God-bearer” but is often translated “mother of God”.
I’m sorry Mike, I just assumed that being a Catholic forum you guys would be familiar with the term.
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VociMike
Guest
And yet some will argue (whether correctly or incorrectly) that “Mother of God” claims more than “Theotokos”, so I’m wondering what you thought about that.
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Snerticus
Guest
The term Theotokos has always been presented to me as a more accurate meaning than “Mother of God”. So no, Catholics who are familiar with this term, at least the one’s I’m familiar with, don’t consider the two the same. Very, very similar, but not exactly the same.
God Bless,
Snert
God Bless,
Snert
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VociMike
Guest
What do you understand the difference to be?
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Snerticus
Guest
Well, to me “Mother of God” is presented as a much broader definition. One to which Protestants would naturally be opposed because it makes it appear as if Mary was Mother of God the Father, which of course is not true.
“God Bearer” on the other hand, does not put an image in my mind of Mary giving birth to God the Father (perhaps to you, but it would be very difficult for me to picture), but it does bring an image of Mary giving birth to Jesus. I can see why Protestants would have an easier time accepting “God Bearer” over " Mother of God" because she did not “parent” God the Father but simply “bore” His Son.
It’s a very delicate difference, but one that I could see being of consequence if I were Protestant.
Snert
“God Bearer” on the other hand, does not put an image in my mind of Mary giving birth to God the Father (perhaps to you, but it would be very difficult for me to picture), but it does bring an image of Mary giving birth to Jesus. I can see why Protestants would have an easier time accepting “God Bearer” over " Mother of God" because she did not “parent” God the Father but simply “bore” His Son.
It’s a very delicate difference, but one that I could see being of consequence if I were Protestant.
Snert
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bpbasilphx
Guest
Theotokos properly means “Birthgiver of God”.
So it is rendered in Romanian (Nasciatore de Dumnuzeu) and Arabic (and I can’t think of it).
So also was it rendered in Hapgood’s famous English Service Book of over 100 years ago.
“Theophoros” is either “Godbearer [carrier]” or “Borne [carried] by God.” So St. Ignatius of Antioch was called in his lifetime.
Nestorius’s heresy was precisely in his refusal to call the Virgin “Theotokos.” He insisted that since she gave birth to only a human nature, she could at most be called “Christotokos.”
The Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, His Holiness Mar Dinkha together with his Holy Synod, and Pope John Paul II agreed that “Theotokos/Mother of God” and “Mother of Christ our God” express the same truth concerning the Incarnation.
So it is rendered in Romanian (Nasciatore de Dumnuzeu) and Arabic (and I can’t think of it).
So also was it rendered in Hapgood’s famous English Service Book of over 100 years ago.
“Theophoros” is either “Godbearer [carrier]” or “Borne [carried] by God.” So St. Ignatius of Antioch was called in his lifetime.
Nestorius’s heresy was precisely in his refusal to call the Virgin “Theotokos.” He insisted that since she gave birth to only a human nature, she could at most be called “Christotokos.”
The Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, His Holiness Mar Dinkha together with his Holy Synod, and Pope John Paul II agreed that “Theotokos/Mother of God” and “Mother of Christ our God” express the same truth concerning the Incarnation.
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Zooey
Guest
[SIGN1]There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.[/SIGN1]
In fact, whether one says, “Theotokos”, or “Mother of God”, it seems to me to be simply the best way of expressing an adequate Christology.
Maybe some non-Catholics are bored & want an argument?
Maybe they have [ahem! cough,cough] issues with their own mothers?
Maybe they are Nestorians, without even realizing it??
PS: Can I bring Nestorius’ coffin in, and see if he’s still really dead??? Please!! Please!! Can I? Can I?? Can I, pretty please with brown sugar and chopped walnuts and whipped cream and a maraschiono cherry and chocolate chips and silver sprinkles on top???..
http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif***Oh,http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif beans!!!***http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif Spoilsports!!!http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif
In fact, whether one says, “Theotokos”, or “Mother of God”, it seems to me to be simply the best way of expressing an adequate Christology.
Maybe some non-Catholics are bored & want an argument?
Maybe they have [ahem! cough,cough] issues with their own mothers?
Maybe they are Nestorians, without even realizing it??
PS: Can I bring Nestorius’ coffin in, and see if he’s still really dead??? Please!! Please!! Can I? Can I?? Can I, pretty please with brown sugar and chopped walnuts and whipped cream and a maraschiono cherry and chocolate chips and silver sprinkles on top???..
http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif***Oh,http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif beans!!!***http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif Spoilsports!!!http://bestsmileys.com/tongs/10.gif
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djeter
Guest
In the Priority of Christ, Fr. Barron hints at what some of the problematical nature of *Theotokos *has been in in liberal Christology circles:
The Particularity Of Jesus When Read Through The Interpretive Lens Of Abstract Religiosity
"Another aspect of the Gospel witness that this strain of modern Christology tends to overlook is the summons to action. One could argue that the Gospels organize themselves around two poles: the call to conversion (“repent and believe the good news”) and the call to mission (“go out to all the nations and preach the good news”). Though it has from the beginning included a contemplative dimension, Christianity is not essentially a contemplative form of life, as are, for example, Buddhism and Platonism. It is rather a mission and a way. In The Grammar of Assent, John Henry Newman distinguishes between what he calls “notional assent” and “real assent,” the intellectual acquiescence that we give, respectively, to abstractions and to particulars.
Thus, one assents notionally to the formulas and arguments in Aquinas’s Summa contra gentiles, but one assents really to the north rose window at Notre Dame. When one wants, says Newman, to move others to action, one ought to appeal not to the notional but to the real, since abstractions engage the mind but particulars impel a person to act. So when Winston Churchill wanted to summon his compatriots to the defense of their homeland, he offered them not arguments but “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Thus, what must stand at the center of the activity that is Christianity cannot be an abstraction, a principle, a sensibility, or a conviction, but rather Christ himself, the one from whom real assent can be elicited.
When the particularity of Jesus is read through the interpretive lens of abstract religion, conversion and mission are compromised. No one will give his life for the feeling of absolute dependency or for the sustenance of ultimate concern; but he might be willing to give her whole self to this Christ, this crucified and risen Lord.
Though he was reluctant to embrace Karl Barth’s image of Christ’s purely perpendicular relationship with the world, Balthasar was pleased to compare Jesus to a mountain flood that overwhelms the turbines pathetically poised to master it. Whatever receptive capacity there is in us (and Balthasar certainly affirmed this capax Dei), it is filled to the point of overflowing, finally overwhelmed, by the novelty and fullness of Jesus. This is furthermore why Balthasar claimed that Christian theology becomes truly compelling precisely at the point where Rahner’s theological anthropology ends: it is not the human being in the presence of absolute mystery that finally matters but rather the Jesus who shows in an utterly surprising way the true nature of that mystery. It also explains why Balthasar kept focusing his (and our) theological attention on the concrete form that is Jesus (Schau der Gestalt): you have to look here, at him, and not at the hazy background that surrounds him.
Compromising The Proclamation Of Jesus’s Divinity
“The most elemental difficulty with the liberal Christology we’ve been examining – a difficulty that gives focus to the two problems already discussed – is that it compromises the proclamation of Jesus’s divinity. In its refutation of Nestorianism, the Council of Ephesus in 431 maintained that Jesus cannot be construed simply as a “God-bearing man,” someone who, like an ordinary saint, would point to God or be in close relationship with God. Nestorius had referred to Jesus as divine, but he meant this only in the highly analogical sense that Jesus was transparent to God through the perfection of his moral and spiritual life. But the council insisted that this extrinsicist and relational reading failed to honor the radicality of the New Testament witness that in dealing with Jesus one is dealing with God, and hence it opted, in line with Nicaea and anticipating Chalcedon, for an ontological presentation. Are the modern Christologies of Kant, Schleiermacher, Tillich, and Rahner not susceptible to the charge of neo -Nestorianism? Can they account adequately for the distinction between Jesus and the great saints? Is the difference between the God-consciousness of Jesus and that of, say, Francis of Assisi only quantitative and not qualitative? Or more precisely, is the posing of the question around an issue such as God-consciousness or the feeling of ultimate concern not to be prejudiced necessarily in favor of a merely quantitative demarcation?”
“One of Balthazar’s most trenchant critiques of Rahner’s Christology is that Rahner cannot finally distinguish between the radical openness to God found in his Jesus and that found in Mary, the one who, in the depth of her being, said yes to the invitation of the Holy Spirit. The Council of Ephesus is helpful on just this point, because while it famously referred to Mary as Theotokos (God-bearer), it assiduously denied, as we saw, that Jesus could be similarly named. Jesus is not simply greater than Mary; he is somehow else. Are the largely symbolic interpretations that we have been considering capable of articulating this strangeness?”
Regards
DJ
The Particularity Of Jesus When Read Through The Interpretive Lens Of Abstract Religiosity
"Another aspect of the Gospel witness that this strain of modern Christology tends to overlook is the summons to action. One could argue that the Gospels organize themselves around two poles: the call to conversion (“repent and believe the good news”) and the call to mission (“go out to all the nations and preach the good news”). Though it has from the beginning included a contemplative dimension, Christianity is not essentially a contemplative form of life, as are, for example, Buddhism and Platonism. It is rather a mission and a way. In The Grammar of Assent, John Henry Newman distinguishes between what he calls “notional assent” and “real assent,” the intellectual acquiescence that we give, respectively, to abstractions and to particulars.
Thus, one assents notionally to the formulas and arguments in Aquinas’s Summa contra gentiles, but one assents really to the north rose window at Notre Dame. When one wants, says Newman, to move others to action, one ought to appeal not to the notional but to the real, since abstractions engage the mind but particulars impel a person to act. So when Winston Churchill wanted to summon his compatriots to the defense of their homeland, he offered them not arguments but “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Thus, what must stand at the center of the activity that is Christianity cannot be an abstraction, a principle, a sensibility, or a conviction, but rather Christ himself, the one from whom real assent can be elicited.
When the particularity of Jesus is read through the interpretive lens of abstract religion, conversion and mission are compromised. No one will give his life for the feeling of absolute dependency or for the sustenance of ultimate concern; but he might be willing to give her whole self to this Christ, this crucified and risen Lord.
Though he was reluctant to embrace Karl Barth’s image of Christ’s purely perpendicular relationship with the world, Balthasar was pleased to compare Jesus to a mountain flood that overwhelms the turbines pathetically poised to master it. Whatever receptive capacity there is in us (and Balthasar certainly affirmed this capax Dei), it is filled to the point of overflowing, finally overwhelmed, by the novelty and fullness of Jesus. This is furthermore why Balthasar claimed that Christian theology becomes truly compelling precisely at the point where Rahner’s theological anthropology ends: it is not the human being in the presence of absolute mystery that finally matters but rather the Jesus who shows in an utterly surprising way the true nature of that mystery. It also explains why Balthasar kept focusing his (and our) theological attention on the concrete form that is Jesus (Schau der Gestalt): you have to look here, at him, and not at the hazy background that surrounds him.
Compromising The Proclamation Of Jesus’s Divinity
“The most elemental difficulty with the liberal Christology we’ve been examining – a difficulty that gives focus to the two problems already discussed – is that it compromises the proclamation of Jesus’s divinity. In its refutation of Nestorianism, the Council of Ephesus in 431 maintained that Jesus cannot be construed simply as a “God-bearing man,” someone who, like an ordinary saint, would point to God or be in close relationship with God. Nestorius had referred to Jesus as divine, but he meant this only in the highly analogical sense that Jesus was transparent to God through the perfection of his moral and spiritual life. But the council insisted that this extrinsicist and relational reading failed to honor the radicality of the New Testament witness that in dealing with Jesus one is dealing with God, and hence it opted, in line with Nicaea and anticipating Chalcedon, for an ontological presentation. Are the modern Christologies of Kant, Schleiermacher, Tillich, and Rahner not susceptible to the charge of neo -Nestorianism? Can they account adequately for the distinction between Jesus and the great saints? Is the difference between the God-consciousness of Jesus and that of, say, Francis of Assisi only quantitative and not qualitative? Or more precisely, is the posing of the question around an issue such as God-consciousness or the feeling of ultimate concern not to be prejudiced necessarily in favor of a merely quantitative demarcation?”
“One of Balthazar’s most trenchant critiques of Rahner’s Christology is that Rahner cannot finally distinguish between the radical openness to God found in his Jesus and that found in Mary, the one who, in the depth of her being, said yes to the invitation of the Holy Spirit. The Council of Ephesus is helpful on just this point, because while it famously referred to Mary as Theotokos (God-bearer), it assiduously denied, as we saw, that Jesus could be similarly named. Jesus is not simply greater than Mary; he is somehow else. Are the largely symbolic interpretations that we have been considering capable of articulating this strangeness?”
Regards
DJ
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VociMike
Guest
Why would that be? Why not also say that “God Bearer” makes it appear as though Mary gave birth to the Father?
I don’t see this distinction at all.
The key to all this, I am convinced, is to understand that in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ, God took on a nature capable of being mothered, capable of being given birth to. And of course, capable of suffering and dying as well.
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mlchance
Guest
That’s an inference, not an implication. No orthodox teaching has ever asserted that the Virgin Mary is the mother of the Father.
– Mark L. Chance.
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jimmy
Guest
Because some have a very nestorian view of Christ. They offer the same reasons as nestorius did for denying it. You can check out this thread for an example where some posters deny the motherhood of Christ.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=350295
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