Why won't Protestants call Mary "Mother of God"

[mlchance]

Jesus Christ is God.
Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ.
Mary is the mother of God.

The only to refute the third sentence above is to deny the truth of one or both of first two sentences. Gotta love basic logic.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[MysticRose]

Jesus Christ is God.
Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ.
Mary is the mother of God.

The only to refute the third sentence above is to deny the truth of one or both of first two sentences. Gotta love basic logic.

– Mark L. Chance.

Logic is a beautiful thing… and I love it too…

So here is a little more for them to chew on… Jesus is God and Mary was His Mother and when she was carrying Him in her womb was He any less fully human and fully God then the day He was born? So therefore although, Mary was used to give flesh to the fully God so that He may become both Fully human and God this does not diminish the fact that even in her womb she carried the GodMan not just the man…

The thing that is unigue to women and that makes them Mothers to begin with is there capacity to carry in their wombs and give burth to children… Therefore, because she gave to God his fleshly nature and because she housed the God and then gave birth to the GodMan this means that she is the Mother of God, in both ways… One symbolically, and one literally…

Pax Christi
Debi

 

[linus]

Mickey:

AHHHH! Now i understand. You are sympathetic toward Nestorius! In essence you are nestorian.Peace to you linus, Mickey

And is this all you supposedly understood from my post? Too bad.

Actually, only as sympathetic as the council of Chalcedon was. They practically vindicated him. I’m not a “Nestorian,” nor do I (like many) just throw that term around without any content.

Peace back at cha!

 

[stanley123]

Jesus Christ is God.
Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ.
Mary is the mother of God.
.

I heard that some Protestants do not accept the first proposition. In this case, that would be a reason for them not to call Mary the Mother of God.

 

[Zooey]

Mickey:

AHHHH! Now i understand. You are sympathetic toward Nestorius! In essence you are nestorian. This explains everything. There is no longer any point trying to convince a nestorian that he subscribes to the nestorian heresy.

Peace to you linus,
Mickey

Mickey, I think you have pegged our friend perfectly! He is defending heresy because he believes that said heresy is actually true, and that orthodox belief is heretical…
OK, I leave you all to try to reason with him…He has:nope: rejected truth for a heterodox belief that allows him the freedom to attack those of us who are trying to explain what orthodoxy is…
But he knows that; it just isn’t helpful to his argument…
Very sad.
Linus, I will pray that you see your error, & how that it downgrades the Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

[MysticRose]

stanley123:

I heard that some Protestants do not accept the first proposition. In this case, that would be a reason for them not to call Mary the Mother of God.

Then they would also be denying the inspired and inerrant word of God at John 1:1 which says he is …
John
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

[TobyLue]

In the beginning was the Word
The Word was with God
and the Word was God…

…The Word was made flesh

If God became man, how could Mary give birth to the flesh without giving birth to God? They cannot be separated. To say that Mary give birth only to the flesh and not to God is to say that the Word was not made flesh but that The Word came into the flesh and the two are separate.

 

[Knight4God]

Linus, sometimes the scriptures show a separation like as you pointed out, Christ not knowing the hour of the end. But not always, like in Acts (where I had mentioned), where Paul equates Christ’s blood on the cross with God’s, not just the man part of Jesus. There is still a mystery to it, but there are times when there seem to be some kind of “overlap”. And even if this were not the case, because we are not talking about attributes or origination, but purely physical location (ie, the God-man was in Mary’s womb, passed through her womb and came out her womb) then Mary is Mater Dei, or Theotokos because the entire person of Jesus is in view. This is analogous to saying “Jesus walked down the beach”, we wouldn’t say "only the “man” part walked down the beach because God is omnipresent, we would say Jesus walked down the beach, and if you saw him you would worship him, not just the “God” part but the entire person. The distinction is maintained via acknowledging that Christ at times was limited and at other times was not. This is the part were we have a mystery that the councils did not explain, nor does scripture. But I fail to see how your logic is working to get around this idea.

 

[linus]

Knight4God:

Linus, sometimes the scriptures show a separation like as you pointed out, Christ not knowing the hour of the end. But not always, like in Acts (where I had mentioned), where Paul equates Christ’s blood on the cross with God’s, not just the man part of Jesus. There is still a mystery to it, but there are times when there seem to be some kind of “overlap”. And even if this were not the case, because we are not talking about attributes or origination, but purely physical location (ie, the God-man was in Mary’s womb, passed through her womb and came out her womb) then Mary is Mater Dei, or Theotokos because the entire person of Jesus is in view. This is analogous to saying “Jesus walked down the beach”, we wouldn’t say "only the “man” part walked down the beach because God is omnipresent, we would say Jesus walked down the beach, and if you saw him you would worship him, not just the “God” part but the entire person. The distinction is maintained via acknowledging that Christ at times was limited and at other times was not. This is the part were we have a mystery that the councils did not explain, nor does scripture. But I fail to see how your logic is working to get around this idea.

Of course the Person of Jesus Christ is spoken of in terms of either one of His two natures. Often in the Bible the attributes of one nature are predicated of the Person of Christ. Or His Person is designated by a title derived from the other nature. He is called in Scripture both “Son of God” and “Son of man.” Actually I addressed this already in my previous post:

“As a result of the incarnation the divine Savior could be ignorant and weak, be tempted, suffer and die. Not in His divine nature, but by virtue of His possession of a human nature. The properties of both the divine and human natures are now the properties of the Person of Christ and are therefore ascribed to Him.”

Hence, it can be accurately said that God purchased the Church with His own blood (Acts 20:28).

But here even you must submit to theological distinctions and restrictions. You cannot apply this to God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, right? “His own blood” can only be said of God the Son since only the Son possesses a human nature.

And based on obvious theological restrictions the title, “Mother of God” cannot truly be predicated of Mary.

My friend also makes this intriguing observation in his article. It takes a some thought:

“In reality, the emphasis of the title theotokos is not on the One to whom Mary gave birth, but Mary herself. It is Scripturally correct to say Mary gave birth to a Child who is, and always was (from all eternity) God the Son (2nd Person of the Trinity), but she, a creation of God, did not give birth to God, which is the unfortunate connotation of that title. Hence, the difficulty with theotokos is that it does not express accurately what even the council at Ephesus was trying to convey. Also, “Mother of God” primarily stresses Christ’s humanity. Since Mary, being human, is the object of this title, it ostensibly states that the humanity of Christ took on divinity – a pagan concept. But in truth, the eternal Son humbled Himself, left heaven and HE took on humanity.”

 

[Zooey]

linus:

My friend also makes this intriguing observation in his article. It takes a some thought:

"In reality, the emphasis of the title theotokos is not on the One to whom Mary gave birth, but Mary herself. It is Scripturally correct to say Mary gave birth to a Child who is, and always was (from all eternity) God the Son (2nd Person of the Trinity), but she, a creation of God, did not give birth to God, which is the unfortunate connotation of that title. Hence, the difficulty with theotokos is that it does not express accurately what even the council at Ephesus was trying to convey. Also, “Mother of God” primarily stresses Christ’s humanity. Since Mary, being human, is the object of this title, it ostensibly states that the humanity of Christ took on divinity – a pagan concept. But in truth, the eternal Son humbled Himself, left heaven and HE took on humanity."

What your “friend” is arguing, is the Nestorian heresy in a nutshell…You might want to check it out over at the Catholic Answers library…There is a:yup: dandy article on Nestorianism over there…
If you’re going to insist on http://bestsmileys.com/sad/8.giffollowing in Nestorius footsteps, http://bestsmileys.com/clueless/6.gifwhy not at least give him the honor of attaching his name to what you (& your “friend”) are teaching??
God bless.

 

[linus]

Zooey:

What your “friend” is arguing, is the Nestorian heresy in a nutshell…You might want to check it out over at the Catholic Answers library…There is a:yup: dandy article on Nestorianism over there…
If you’re going to insist on http://bestsmileys.com/sad/8.giffollowing in Nestorius footsteps, http://bestsmileys.com/clueless/6.gifwhy not at least give him the honor of attaching his name to what you (& your “friend”) are teaching??
God bless.

From the article on Catholic Answers:

“While claiming to believe in one Christ in two natures, his explanation described the union of two distinct persons:”

My dear Zooey, you fail to comprehend my posts. First you accused me of arguing that Jesus is not 100 percent God and 100 percent human - but I demonstrated to you that that is not the case. Now you accuse me of saying Jesus has two distinct “persons.” Which is not true, either. Go back and read my posts and you will see I state ONE Person with two distinct natures. There’s a big difference.

 

[Knight4God]

Right, God purchased the Church because Jesus did, but the Father and Spirit did not. If Jesus walks down the beach, God walked down the beach, but the Father and Spirit did not. If Jesus was in Mary’s womb then God was in Mary’s womb but the Father and Spirit were not. Hence if Mary out of her womb gave birth to the person of Jesus, then she gave birth to God, but did not give birth to the Father or Spirit. Birth is a aspect of personhood, and therefore can be ascribed to have happened to both natures, as opposed to something’s that only happen to one. Theotokos has never, nor should it ever mean in any way that the Son found his origination in Mary, as if he did not exist before. Before Mary he wasn’t incarnate, so we can say after the incarnation in the womb of Mary is the point were the Word took on human flesh. So when it comes to origination then yes, Mary only gave the flesh to the Word. We are not talking about origination, however, we are talking about process. The process of a person coming out of a womb, this is the key to understanding what the phrase means and what it doesn’t.

There are no theological restrictions to Theotokos as long as the term is understood they way it was supposed to be understood, and that is stating the fact that the person that came out of the womb of Mary was fully God and Man in one person. Not that the Word found his existence in Mary. Your arguing against a position that does not exist. No Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant theologian has ever used Theotokos in that way.

An “unfortunate connotation” does not disprove the logic, it only proves that it is possible to be misunderstood. The truth of the title still stands when understood how it is supposed to be however, and for whatever abuses it is more accurate the Christokos. I don’t understand the last objection of your friend, that seems subjective, that it stresses Christ’s humanity; I think he does not understand what Theologians are meaning when they use the phrase.

 

[AquinasXVI]

If there ever was a commercial about the redemption of man, the tag line should read like this:

" Salvation! brought to you by Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Sponsored by Mary. "

in Xt.

 

[Zooey]

linus:

From the article on Catholic Answers:

"While claiming to believe in one Christ in two natures, his explanation described the union of two distinct persons:"

My dear Zooey, you fail to comprehend my posts. First you accused me of arguing that Jesus is not 100 percent God and 100 percent human - but I demonstrated to you that that is not the case. Now you accuse me of saying Jesus has two distinct “persons.” Which is not true, either. Go back and read my posts and you will see I state ONE Person with two distinct natures.

You state it, but you use the word “person” to mean “nature”. You can’t just make up your own definition of a word…That is precisely what Nestorius did, which is precisely what got him (justifiedly so, IMHO) in trouble.
Now you can use the word person to mean nature if you want to, but that doesn’t mean that you are right.( I mean, I could claim to be Donald Trump, but it wouldn’t help a bit when it came to finding the money to pay the fuel bills this winter). Please re-read the posts here, and the info from the article. It is really excellent. But you have to take words to mean what they mean, not what you want them to mean.

There’s a big difference.

I know…That’s why I’m still here…still http://bestsmileys.com/frustrated/9.giftalking....still http://bestsmileys.com/frustrated/7.gif and http://bestsmileys.com/frustrated/3.gif…
(Sigh…)

 

[Zooey]

AquinasXVI:

If there ever was a commercial about the redemption of man, the tag line should read like this:

" Salvation! brought to you by Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Sponsored by Mary. "

in Xt.

 

[linus]

Zooey:

You state it, but you use the word “person” to mean “nature”. You can’t just make up your own definition of a word…That is precisely what Nestorius did, which is precisely what got him (justifiedly so, IMHO) in trouble.
Now you can use the word person to mean nature if you want to, but that doesn’t mean that you are right.( I mean, I could claim to be Donald Trump, but it wouldn’t help a bit when it came to finding the money to pay the fuel bills this winter). Please re-read the posts here, and the info from the article. It is really excellent. But you have to take words to mean what they mean, not what you want them to mean.

Zooey, you’re not thinking, just reacting, you just want to defend your position. I don’t use the word “person” to mean “nature” at all. Nor do I “make up words” as you accuse me of doing. I use the SAME terminology as the Council of Chalcedon. Are you going to accuse them of “making up words” too?

“Following the holy fathers, we unanimously teach one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, complete as to His Godhead, and complete as to His manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting; consubstantial with the Father as to His Godhead, and consubstantial with us as to His manhood; like unto us in all things, yet without sin; as to His Godhead begotten of the Father before all worlds, but as to his manhood, in these last days born, for us men and for our salvation, of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God (obviously added as a “dig” against Nestorius); one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in (of) two natures without confusion, without conversion, without severance, and without division; the division of the natures being of no wise abolished by their union; but the peculiarity of each nature being maintained, and both occuring in one person and hypostasis” (emphasis mine).

 

[linus]

AquinasXVI:

If there ever was a commercial about the redemption of man, the tag line should read like this: " Salvation! brought to you by Jesus Christ the Son of God. Sponsored by Mary. "

This hinges on blasphemy. You see, Knight4God, what comes out of the erroneous appellation “Mother of God?” Mary (like Elizabeth, Paul, Peter and the others) was a chosen vessel but hardly an “associate” of the divine plan of redemption. Redemption belongs to the glory of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ONLY.

 

[linus]

Knight4God:

Before Mary he wasn’t incarnate, so we can say after the incarnation in the womb of Mary is the point were the Word took on human flesh. So when it comes to origination then yes, Mary only gave the flesh to the Word.

Correct, hence, the error of “theotokos.”

I don’t understand the last objection of your friend, that seems subjective, that it stresses Christ’s humanity;

Mary was human, right? As you rightfully state above, Mary gave the “flesh” (human nature) to the Word. Therefore in that respect she can be called His “Mother,” but only in connection to His humanity. However, Rome teaches an interpenetration of the human and divine natures of Christ. So logically, the appellation “Mother of God” (“mother” being a human designation and the subject of the title) stresses His humanity through Mary, implying that humanity took on Deity. A pagan concept.

I realize this is not what was intended theologically by those who came up with the title, but it is exactly what the appellation itself implies when you connect the word “mother” (Mary being human) with the word God.

And consequently that fundamental error has been the vehicle through which men, not God, subsequently have elevated Mary to heavenly positions and titles equal to Christ Himself: “Queen of Heaven”’; “Mother of all Life”; “Co-Redeemer”; “Mediatrix of our redemption.” Even attributing to her a sinless birth, a sinsless life, a bodily assumption into Heaven, a dispenser of graces and an eternal, personal “motherly” influence over her Son *****. Excesses found nowhere in Holy Writ.

***** It was said that “if you were terrified at the thunders of the Father, go to Jesus, and if you fear to go to Jesus, then run to Mary. And being sought by the sinner she shows her breasts and bosom to the Son, as the Son shows His wounds to the Father.”

This is why most Protestants don’t call Mary “Mother of God.”

 

[Zooey]

Believe me, I’m thinking. And what I’m thinking is that you don’t understand the hypostatic union. Ergo, you don’t understand the term Mother of God.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt here, by the way. I am assuming that the reason you are fighting this so, is that you simply aren’t hearing what we are saying. As opposed to the alternative, which would be that you are so determined to reject the title, that you are willing to jettison orthodox faith instead of admitting that you were wrong.
Now, I don’t believe this, so clearly, you need to do your homework on the hypostatic union.

Furthermore, you are not reading my posts properly, or you would know that I did *not *say that you are “making up words”; I said you seemed making up your own definitions of them.
Also, when you quote from church councils, it would be a little better to believe that you are not misquoting them, if you would stop slipping in lines like “obviously added as a dig at Nestorius”…(who, by the way, also thought that he was being perfectly orthodox. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now…)

Now, if you want to espouse heresy, that is your choice; it’s still a free country. But this is not the best place to come to find people who will let you get away with it.
God bless.

 

[Zooey]

linus:

This hinges on blasphemy.

Stuff and nonsense. It’s nothing of the kind. It’s proper respect for the Mother of God.

You see, Knight4God, what comes out of the erroneous appellation “Mother of God?”

I don’t know about Knight4God, but what I see coming out of it is a proper understanding of the incarnation, and the identity of Jesus Christ.

Mary (like Elizabeth, Paul, Peter and the others) was a chosen vessel but hardly an “associate” of the divine plan of redemption.

I don’t think that anyone called Mary an “associate”, but for sure, she was associated with the divine plan. She gave up 9 months of her life bringing the Author of said plan into the world. She spent the years of His childhood raising Him to manhood. And she spent hours standing at the foot of the cross, instead of running for cover, which would have been far safer. And was with the apostles in the upper room on the day of pentecost, when there was blood in the eyes of Jesus’ enemies all over again.

Redemption belongs to the glory of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ONLY

http://bestsmileys.com/clueless/6.gif And??? Yourhttp://bestsmileys.com/clueless/6.gif point???http://bestsmileys.com/clueless/6.gif