Mary the Mother of God (Theotokos)
These posts originally appeared in PhileoNet Theology in October 1994.
From: P / To: EDDY MANWEILER / Subj: Theotokos Debate
Is Mary the Mother of God?
representing the historic, orthodox Christian position
P, resident Catholic apologist of PhileoNet -- YES, Mary is Theotokos, the Mother of God
representing the Nestorian position condemned as heresy at the Council of Ephesus on June 22, 431 A.D.
EDDY MANWEILER, resident anti-Catholic Fundamentalist -- NO, Mary is NOT the Mother of God but rather --
EM> Mary was the mother of the "FLESH" but not the "WORD"!!!!!
EM> But to assume thereby such improper titles for her as "Mother of God" is totally improper and even blasphemous!!
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First, what do orthodox Christians mean that Mary is Theotokos or "God-bearer" or the Mother of God? Let's state first what this does NOT mean --
(1) Mother of God does NOT mean Mary is OLDER than God
(2) Mother of God does NOT mean Mary CREATED God
(3) Mother of God does NOT mean Mary ORIGINATED Christ's deity
(4) Mother of God does NOT mean Mary is divine
(5) Mother of God does NOT mean all the things Eddy thinks it means
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ERROR # 1 -- Eddy believes --
EM> Since Mary was a part of "that which was MADE" by the Divine Son as the "Maker", then she could not be the mother of Him who pre-existed her. If David was not the "Father" of the pre-existing Deity, then Mary, who was born a thousand years later could not be His "Mother".
This blunders into error number (1) Mary is OLDER than God. To say Mary is not the Mother of God because Christ "pre-existed her" is a misunderstanding of what orthodox Christians mean by Mother of God.
ERROR # 2 -- Eddy believes --
EM> No one or no thing that was created by Him could originate HIM!!!
This blunders into error number (2) Mary CREATED God. To say Mary is not the Mother of God because Mary did not "originate" or CREATE Him (i.e. God) is a misunderstanding of "Mother of God."
ERROR # 3 -- Eddy believes --
EM> Jesus is properly called "The Son of God" for He was "Conceived by the Holy Spirit" Matthew 1:21, and it is not the same thing in reverse to say that Mary is the "Mother of God" for she had nothing to do with the origin of His unoriginated Deity!!!!!
This blunders into error number (3) Mary ORIGINATED Christ's deity. To say Mary is not the Mother of God because Mary did not "originate" Christ's deity is a misunderstanding once again of "Mother of God."
ERROR # 4 -- Eddy believes --
EM> Perhaps no doctrine is more characteristic and peculiar to Roman Catholicism that its Mariolatry.
This blunders into error number (4) Mary is divine. To use the term "Mariolatry" which means the "worship of Mary" is a misunderstanding of the Catholic position. The term "Mariology" is the proper term which means the study of Marian doctrines and devotions. The statement that the Catholic Church's Mariology is "characteristic and peculiar" to Roman Catholicism shows not only a complete ignorance of Christians from other traditions (Eastern Orthodox, etc.) but a total lack of knowledge of Church history.
Eddy's statement will be demolished with several quotes from major Protestant theologians, the Church Fathers and great saints of the past, and even the Protestant Reformers who had a deep reverence for the Blessed Mother. These all affirmed Mary truly is Mother of God.
To quote Eddy once again --
EM> MANY other such passages could be cited, but these are sufficient to establish the point.
And what is the point? The point is Eddy clearly has no idea what he is talking about when he tries to attack the Catholic Church and her doctrines. I suggest Eddy get himself the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and study it CAREFULLY. Then he can more effectively engage Catholics in debate. Although Eddy did an okay job defining initially the Catholic position, he totally misunderstood what he defined in his error-filled response.
So let me quote from the most authoritative and current source for Catholic doctrine -- the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (paragraphs 487, 466, 495) --
487. What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.
466. The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council at Ephesus in 431 confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man." Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb:
"Mother of God, NOT THAT THE NATURE OF THE WORD OF HIS DIVINITY RECEIVED THE BEGINNING OF ITS EXISTENCE FROM THE HOLY VIRGIN, but that since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."
495. Called in the Gospels "the mother of Jesus," Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as "the mother of my Lord" [Lk 1:43; Jn 2:1; 19:25; cf. Mt 13:55; et al]. In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "MOTHER OF GOD" (THEOTOKOS).
If this is the Catholic position -- that Mary is truly the MOTHER OF GOD (Theotokos) -- and Eddy DENIES the Catholic position, the question remains, according to Eddy Manweiler, of who or of WHAT was Mary the mother?
Eddy provides us with some surprising theological gymnastics trying to avoid the historic, orthodox Christian position. I think the following demonstrates why we NEED an infallible Church to help us define clearly what is the orthodox and biblical position --
Confused statement # 1 --
EM> Mary was the mother of the "FLESH" but not the "WORD"!!!!!
Ambiguous statement # 2 --
EM> It is not improper to think of God's Divine Son "emptying and humbling himself" down to the size of an unborn child, enter the womb of Mary and exit with a complete human form; how else could He "Become Flesh" ?
Confused statement # 3 --
EM> "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" and not Deity!!! Even in the case of Jesus - His flesh was born of the flesh!!!
Confused statement # 4 --
EM> "Seed of David according to His flesh" - for Paul makes a clear distinction between the origin of the "flesh" and that of the Divine Person.
This leads to two further questions, according to Eddy --
(1) WHO is Jesus Christ?
(2) And is Eddy Manweiler a Nestorian -- does he believe Christ is TWO PERSONS?
Examine carefully Eddy's above four statements and ask yourself --
Is Jesus merely a "flesh" body and NOT a person? Is Jesus merely a "complete human form" and NOT divine? Is Jesus "not Deity" because He was "born of the flesh?" Is Jesus TWO Divine Persons or ONE Divine Person with two NATURES, divine and human?
EM> Mary is never called "The Mother of Christ: she is invariably called "The Mother of Jesus" John 2:1; Acts 1:14.
The final question is -- Does Eddy believe that in Jesus Christ "dwells all the FULLNESS OF DEITY BODILY" (Col 2:9) ? I think it is clear Eddy does believe this. Then he should have no problem with calling Mary the "Mother of God" properly understood.
EM> But to assume thereby such improper titles for her as "Mother of God" is totally improper and even blasphemous!!
Because of Eddy's anti-Catholic blinders he seeks to avoid this title that represents the historic, orthodox, and biblical position and tends toward Nestorianism by making rather confused statements about who Jesus Christ is, His incarnation, and His Mother.
Even CRI's apologists, Elliot Miller and Ken Samples, in their critique of Catholic Mariology, THE CULT OF THE VIRGIN (Baker, 1992), while wanting "immediate qualification" admit that the term is proper --
"Though some Protestants have disputed any use of the term, in the sense that the person she gave birth to is -- by identity -- God, Mary is THE MOTHER OF GOD." (p. 21)
"...the orthodox [Christians] emphatically insisted that Mary is THE MOTHER OF GOD. By this they meant to uphold the truths that the man born of Mary was truly God, and, conversely, that the second person in the Godhead had indeed taken upon himself the full nature of man." (p. 20)
"....we at the same time maintain with the Council of [Ephesus] that the one she bore is definitely God." (p. 22)
Another Protestant theologian, John de Satge accepts the term Theotokos and writes --
"It is hard to see how any Christian theology can be GENUINELY EVANGELICAL without doing justice to it."
(DOWN TO EARTH: The New Protestant Vision of the Virgin Mary [Consortium, 1976], p. 52)
And the Calvinist who I love to quote, Max Thurian, writes --
"Mary here appears for the first time as one intimately linked with the mission of the Son of God; she is indeed the Mother of the Lord. Mother and Son are made one; the word of the mother conveys the Word of the Son, she transmits the Spirit of God, and produces a divine miracle in Elizabeth. This unity of Mother and Son emphasizes very strongly the reality of the incarnation: God has truly taken flesh in the Virgin Mary, is the Son of Mary, and MARY IS THE MOTHER OF GOD.
"It is this reality of the incarnation which is affirmed by Mary's title of 'MOTHER OF GOD' -- 'theotokos,' which the Council of Ephesus was to pronounce in A.D. 431. In order to comprehend in all its depth and breadth the mystery of the incarnation, one must acknowledge this unity of Mother and Son, of Mary and Jesus, at the time of the incarnation and confess Mary to be 'MOTHER OF GOD.'
"Here still we can notice the physical and spiritual unity of Mary and God, which emphasizes the full reality of the Incarnation. We find a second time the truth and the sense of the dogma of Ephesus: MARY IS MOTHER OF GOD, 'theotokos.'
"Mary is not simply an impersonal instrument which enables God to come amongst us and which one can really ignore. Her human and real person, her nature and history are linked with the incarnation of God.....The divine motherhood of Mary is a truly human motherhood in the deep sense of the unity of mother and son, the human mother of God and the Son of God made man.
"A purely physical conception without any conception by the spirit would not only have been meaningless, but truly frightening; and it is not possible that redemption for men should end with the destruction of her who should be first to share in it. Mary only became the mother of this Son without peer because she could embody that motherhood in a personal sense. To do that would in the end be to lessen faith in the true humanity of Christ, and not to consider Mary as a mother in any real sense, as physical and yet also psychological and spiritual as well.
"Hence the title of 'MOTHER OF GOD' emphasizes all the more the humanity, as well as the true divinity, of Christ. MARY IS 'MOTHER' OF GOD: that means to say that God is truly one who became her son, a son in the human sense of fully man.
"MARY IS THE MOTHER OF 'GOD': that means to say that, as from her miraculous conception, her son was the Son of God, God Himself in his Incarnate Presence. Thus the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) which gave Mary the title 'MOTHER OF GOD' and that of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) which asserted the two natures of Christ in ONE person, are in the end saying the same thing and expressing very well the mystery of Christ who is truly God and truly man, as the Gospel states."
(MARY, MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTIANS [Herder, 1963], p. 67-68, 72-73)
In addition, the ENTIRE HISTORY of Christianity is against those who deny Mary the title Theotokos, Mother of God.
For example, let's start with the Protestant Reformers, shall we?
From Martin Luther "Commentary on the Magnificat" --
"Men have crowded all her glory into a single phrase: THE MOTHER OF GOD. No one can say anything greater of her...."
"She is RIGHTLY called not only the mother of the man, but also THE MOTHER OF GOD...It is CERTAIN that Mary is THE MOTHER OF THE REAL AND TRUE GOD."
"God is born...the child who drinks his Mother's milk is eternal; he existed before the world's beginning and he created heaven and earth...these two natures are so united that there is only ONE God and Lord, that Mary suckles God with her breasts, bathes God, rocks him, and carries him."
(LUTHER'S WORKS [Jaroslav Pelikan] 24:107; 22:492-493)
French Reformed pastor Charles Drelincourt, who well represents the Reformed tradition of the 17th century, wrote --
"We do not simply believe that God has favoured the holy and blessed Virgin more than all the Patriarchs and the Prophets, but also that He has exalted her above all Seraphim. The angels can only qualify as servants of the Son of God, the creatures and workmanship of his hands; but the holy Virgin is not only the servant and the creature but also THE MOTHER OF THIS GREAT AND LIVING GOD."
(from MARY, MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTIANS by Max Thurian, p. 89)
Now hear some of the great saints and Church Fathers of the past --
St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 140 - 202 A.D.)
"The WORD HIMSELF, BORN OF MARY who was still a Virgin, rightly received in BIRTH the recapitulation of Adam...."
"The Virgin Mary...being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would BEAR GOD." (AGAINST HERESIES 3:21:10; 5:19:1)
Alexander of Alexandria (c. 324 A.D.) Letter to a Bishop
"And in one only Catholic Church, that which is Apostolic.... we acknowledge the resurrection of the dead, of which Jesus Christ our Lord became the firstling; who bore a body not in appearance but in truth, derived from Mary THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]...."
St. Ephraim (306 - 373 A.D.) "Songs of Praise"
"In the womb of Mary the Infant was formed, who from eternity is equal to the Father. He imparted to us His greatness, and took on our infirmity. He became mortal like us and joined his life to ours, so that we might die no more.
"This Virgin became a Mother while preserving her virginity; And though still a Virgin she carried a Child in her womb; And the handmaid and work of His Wisdom became THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]."
St. Athanasius (c. 295 - 373 A.D.) Incarnation of the Word 8
"Accordingly, the Son of God became Son of Man, so that the sons of man, that is, of Adam, might become sons of God. The Word begotten of the Fathe from on high, inexpressibly, inexplicably, incompre- hensibly and eternally, is He that is born in time here below, of the Virgin Mary, THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]."
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315 - 386 A.D.) Catech Lect 10:19
"Many, my beloved, are the true witnesses to Christ. The Father bears witness from heaven to His Son. The Holy Spirit bears witness, coming down bodily in the form of a dove. The Archangel Gabriel bears witness, bringing good tidings to Mary. The Virgin MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos] bears witness...."
St. Gregory of Nazianz (c. 330 - 389 A.D.) Letters 101
"If anyone does not agree that Holy Mary is THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos], he is at odds with the Godhead. If anyone asserts that Christ passed through the Virgin as through a channel, and was not shaped in her both divinely and humanly, divinely because without man and humanly because in accord with the law of gestation, he is likewise godless."
St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 - 394 A.D.) Virginity 14(13)
"Just as in the time of Mary, THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos], the Death who had reigned from Adam until then found, when he came to her and dashed his forces against the fruit of her virginity as against a rock, that he was himself shattered against her, so too in every soul that passes through this life in flesh that is protected by virginity...."
St. Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315 - 403 A.D.) Man Well-Anchored 75
"For this is the Holy Savior who came down from heaven, who deigned to fashion our salvation in a virginal workshop... who did not change His nature when He took on humanity along with His divinity...who took on the human flesh and soul; being perfect at the side of the Father and incarnate among us, not in appearance but in truth, He reshaped man to perfection in Himself, from Mary THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos] through the Holy Spirit...The Word Himself became flesh, not ceasing to be God, not changing divinity into humanity, but with the proper fulness of His divinity and with the proper Person of God the Word...."
St. Jerome (c. 347 - 420 A.D.) Commentary on Isaiah 3:7:15
"Do not marvel at the novelty of the thing, if a Virgin GIVES BIRTH TO GOD, who has such great power that, about to be born after so long a time, when called upon He now sets you free...."
St. Augustine of Hippo (c. 354 - 430 A.D.)
"That one woman is both Mother and Virgin, not in spirit only but even in body. In spirit she is Mother, not of our Head, who is our Savior Himself -- of whom, rather, it was she who was born spiritually, since all who believe in Him, including even herself, are rightly called children of the bridegroom -- but plainly she is [in spirit] MOTHER OF US WHO ARE HIS MEMBERS, because by love she has COOPERATED so that THE FAITHFUL, who are the members of that Head, MIGHT BE BORN in the Church. In body, indeed, she is MOTHER of that very Head." (Holy Virginity 6:6)
St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 423 A.D.) Letters 1, 39
"I have been amazed that some are utterly in doubt as to whether or not the Holy Virgin is able to be called MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how should the Holy Virgin who bore Him NOT be THE MOTHER OF GOD?
"We confess therefore that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Only-begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect Man...a union was made of the two natures, on which account we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord.
"In accord with this understanding of the unconfused union we confess that the Holy Virgin is THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos], through God the Word's being incarnate and becoming Man, and from this conception, His joining to Himself the temple assumed from her...."
St. John Cassian (c. 430 A.D.) Incarnation of Christ 2:2
"Now, HERETIC, you say, whoever you are who deny that GOD WAS BORN of the Virgin, that Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, cannot be called Theotokos, that is, THE MOTHER OF GOD, but Christotokos, that is, the Mother ONLY of Christ, and NOT OF GOD.
"For no one, you say, gives birth to one OLDER than herself. And of this UTTERLY STUPID argument, wherein you suppose that the BIRTH OF GOD can be understood by a carnal intellect and believe that the mystery of His Majesty can be resolved by human reasoning, we will, if God permit, offer a refutation later on. In the meantime, however, let us prove by divine testimonies both that CHRIST IS GOD AND THAT MARY IS THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]."
St. John Damascene (c. 645 - 749 A.D.)
"We proclaim that the Holy Virgin is PROPERLY AND TRULY THE MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]; for since He that was born of her is true God, she that bore the true God, incarnate of her, is true MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos]. For we hold that GOD WAS BORN OF HER, not as if the Divinity of the Word took the beginning of His existence from her, but that GOD THE WORD, who was begotten of the Father timelessly before the ages, and who subsisted with the Father and with the Spirit eternally and without beginning, in these last days TOOK HIS ABODE in her womb for our salvation, and without change took flesh of her AND WAS BORN." (The Source of Knowledge 3:3:12)
"For the Holy Virgin did not BEAR mere man BUT TRUE GOD....I do therefore confess and proclaim with mind and heart and mouth that the Holy Virgin Mary is PROPERLY AND TRULY MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos] who truly gave birth to the Only-begotton Son of God who before the ages was by nature God, when He had taken flesh of her." (Pamphlet on Right Mindedness 2)
"We worship and adore the Creator and Maker alone, as God who by His nature is to be worshiped [latria]. We honor [dulia] also the Holy MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos], not as God, but as GOD'S MOTHER according to the flesh. Moreover we honor [dulia] also the saints, as elect friends of God, and as having gotten ready audience with Him." (Apologetic Sermons 3:41)
"The incarnate Son of God who was born of Mary was not a divinely-inspired man, but God incarnate...Must she not, therefore, be MOTHER OF GOD [Theotokos], who BORE GOD INCARNATE? Certainly she who performed the role of the Creator's handmaid and Mother is truly and in perfect reality GOD'S MOTHER, and Lady and Queen over all creation." (Source of Knowledge 3:4:14)
"We proclaim the Holy Virgin the THEOTOKOS [MOTHER OF GOD], because it is she who BORE GOD when the Lord truly became incarnate of her. We know she is the Christokos, because she bore Christ. But since the ill-fated Nestorius abused this latter term to the detriment of the word THEOTOKOS, we do not call her Christokos at all, but look ONLY TO THE MORE EXCELLENT AND CALL HER THEOTOKOS." (Against the Nestorians 43)
And Eddy said --
EM> But to assume thereby such improper titles for her as "Mother of God" is totally improper and even blasphemous!!
The following Christians, according to Eddy, are being blasphemous -- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180), Alex of Alex (c. 324), St. Ephraim (c. 338), St. Cyril of J (c. 350), St. Athanasius (c. 365), St. Greg of Nys (c. 370), St. Epiphanius (c. 374), St. Greg of Naz (c. 382), St. Augustine (c. 401), St. Jerome (c. 408), St. Cyril of A (c. 423), St. John Cassian (c. 430), St. John Damascene (c. 740), Martin Luther, Charles Drelincourt, and ALL the Protestant Reformers.
And such Protestant theologians as Elliot Miller/Ken Samples, John De Satge, Max Thurian, and thousands more --
Plus every Catholic who ever lived and ALL the Eastern Orthodox -- basically the ENTIRE history of Christianity is being "blasphemous."
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I left out some important Protestant testimony concerning Mary as the Mother of God, Theotokos. Quotes taken from MARY, MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTIANS by Max Thurian (p. 76ff) --
LUTHER wrote in 1539 in a treatise entitled "Of Councils and Churches"
"Hence this council [of Ephesus] did not establish anything new in the faith, but defended the ancient faith against the new vagueness of Nestorius. Indeed the article according to which Mary is MOTHER OF GOD has been in the Church from the beginning and has not been newly produced by the council but on the contrary contained in the gospel or in Holy Scripture.
"For in St. Luke [1:32] we find that the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin that she must bear the Son of the Most High and Elizabeth says: 'whence comes it that the Mother of the Lord should come to me?' And the angels at Christmas together sing: 'unto us is born this day a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.'
"In the same way St. Paul [Gal 4:4] -- 'God has sent his Son, born of a woman.' These words which I hold to be true surely support quite strongly that MARY IS THE MOTHER OF GOD."
ZWINGLI had printed in 1524 a sermon on
"MARY, ever virgin, MOTHER OF GOD."
Further, in a passage where he defends himself against the accusations that he considered Mary a sinner like any other creature, he says --
"I have never thought, still less taught, or declared publicly, anything concerning the subject of the ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of our salvation, which could be considered dishonourable, impious, unworthy or evil....I hope this is sufficient to have made plain to pious and simple Christians my clear conviction on the matter of THE MOTHER OF GOD:
"I believe with all my heart according to the word of the holy gospel that this pure virgin bore for us the Son of God and that she remained, in the birth and after it, a pure and unsullied virgin, for eternity."
While CALVIN was somewhat hesitant in using the title "Mother of God" for Mary, and consequently tended toward Nestorianism in Christology, he did have much respect for the Ecumenical Councils and wrote --
"In this regard we willingly receive the ancient councils like Nicea, Constantinople, the first Council of Ephesus, Chalcedon and the like which were held to condemn the errors and evil opinions of heretics. We bear them, I repeat, in honour and respect, in so far as they hold to the articles which we have here defined, for these councils do not contain anything but a pure and natural interpretation of Holy Writ, which the holy Fathers with great prudence have employed to overthrow the enemies of Christianity."
BULLINGER, Zwingli's successor, who represents the second generation of the Reformation and a stabilization of Reformed doctrine, wrote --
"Nestorius, the heretic, recognized two natures in Christ, and he understood them as being TWO PERSONS. Indeed he taught that the Word had not been united in ONE PERSON with the flesh, but had only been its habitation in the flesh: that is why he would not admit that the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY WAS CALLED 'THEOTOKOS' OR MOTHER OF GOD."
Thus, Bullinger accepts the title for Christological reasons.
CHARLES DRELINCOURT, the French Reformed pastor, wrote in 1633 --
"On account of this close and unaccountable union (of the natures of Christ), what belonged to one of those natures can be attributed generally to the PERSON. Hence just as the Apostle, St. Paul, said that the Jews crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor 2)...we find no difficulty in saying with the Ancients, that the VIRGIN MARY IS THE MOTHER OF GOD; for he whom she BORE IS GOD above all else, eternally blest (Rom 9)."
Thus, this Calvinist pastor (unlike Calvin) does not hesitate to speak of Mary as the Mother of God since St. Paul speaks of the crucified Lord of glory.
Max Thurian, Calvinist theologian, and author of MARY, MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTIANS, after listing all this Protestant testimony, concludes:
"If God has truly taken flesh in the Virgin Mary, and if the two natures of Christ are really united in ONE PERSON, Mary CANNOT be only the mother of the humanity of Christ as if that could be separated from His divinity. She is mother of ONE SINGLE PERSON, the MOTHER OF GOD made man, of the Only Christ, true God and true man." (p. 78-79)
"To call Mary 'THE MOTHER OF GOD' is to express in the ONLY way which is adequate the mystery of the Incarnation of God who became man." (p. 83)
And yet Eddy believes --
EM> Mary was the mother of the "FLESH" but not the "WORD"!!!!!
Question: Is Eddy's mother the mother of his "flesh" or his person?
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From a new book by John Armstrong, general editor (Moody Press, 1994) --
ROMAN CATHOLICISM: Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Divides and Unites Us
includes essays by the top Evangelicals in the country -- John H. Armstrong, Donald G. Bloesch, Harold O.J. Brown, D. Clair Davis, W. Robert Godfrey, Michael S. Horton, S. Lewis Johnson, Alister E. McGrath, Ronald Nash, Thomas J. Nettles, Kim Riddlebarger, Robert B. Strimple
From chapter by S. Lewis Johnson (Th.M., Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary) who has held professorships at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and DTS. He was involved in the Scripture translation of the New International Version and the Berkeley Bible and is author of _The Old Testament in the New_ --
Essay 5 -- "MARY, THE SAINTS, AND SACERDOTALISM" (p. 119 - 140)
"The questions [regarding Mary's perpetual virginity] arise primarily from the statement of Matthew concerning Joseph's relations with Mary after the angelic announcement to him: [quotes Matthew 1:25]....
"The tense of the verb 'had no union' (lit., was not knowing her) takes the reader to the moment of the 'until she gave birth.' BEYOND THAT POINT SCRIPTURE IS OF NO CERTAIN HELP. Brothers of the Lord are mentioned (Matthew 13:55), BUT IT CANNOT BE DETERMINED THAT THEY WERE SONS OF MARY. Luther, with Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and others, affirmed the perpetual virginity. Calvin says that beyond the birth of Jesus SCRIPTURE IS SILENT and that 'none but a CONTENTIOUS TROUBLE-MAKER will press it all the way.'"
Hence, Ron, I think our perpetual virginity debate is over. We have both proven that Scripture is inconclusive on the matter. I suggest you start listening to that constant tradition of the Christian church.
For Eddy I will quote from S. Lewis Johnson's section on Mary as the Mother of God (Theotokos).
"The term is designed to indicate that 'Mary is truly the Mother of God.' The title was given Mary at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 after the repudiation of the objections of Nestorius, who insisted that she was the Mother of Christ (Christokos) but not Theotokos, which means 'God-bearing.'
[ quoting Giovanni Miegge THE VIRGIN MARY (Westminster, 1955) ]
"'In what sense,' Miegge asks, 'can it be said that God was crucified or that God was born of the Virgin Mary? Here is the problem that wearied the minds of the fifth century, and the heat of the passion that accompanies the fluctuations of the doctrine makes it clear that the problem was not just an arbitrary theological abstraction but was VITAL TO FAITH.'"
[ after quoting the definition of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) ]
"'NONE of the foregoing words can be left out,' Miegge warns, 'without the sense of Theotokos being falsified. Mary is mother of Christ "according to the flesh," because Christ "according to the spirit" is son of God and conceived by the Holy Spirit. She is mother not by divinity in herself -- a blasphemous idea -- but by the hypostasis of the Logos; but not by the Logos in itself, which has no mother, but the LOGOS INCARNATED.
"'And she is the mother of the incarnate Logos by its aspect of humanity because the properties of the two natures must be respected and what is said of Christ as God is not to be said of Christ as man.
"'This notwithstanding, in virtue of the hypostatic union, since there is only ONE Christ, one can say, with all the reservations and explanations above, that the Mother of Christ IS THE MOTHER OF GOD and that such is the paradox of the faith.'"
And yet Eddy Manweiler believes --
EM> But to assume thereby such improper titles for her as "Mother of God" is totally improper and even blasphemous!!
If it's Eddy v. 2,000 years of Christian testimony, including ALL the Church Fathers, the Protestant Reformers, and such modern Evangelical scholars as the above -- I think it is pretty clear who is wrong. What do you think, Eddy?
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