Theology of the Immaculate conception?

[David Jack]

[Pizza Man]

[David Jack]

[Pizza Man]

[David Jack]

Well I can see how that would give a kind of symmetry to our worship-having a spiritual Mother as well as a spiritual Father-but isn't it a bit much? I mean I know Catholics don't believe Mary was divine but it does seem quite a direct parallel with the Almighty who after all has Motherly qualities as well as Fatherly.
As for the verse you quote, I had always taken that at face value: Jesus' earthly life was drawing to a close and John would be as a son to Mary in his stead. I understand your interpretation but to me it doesn't seem an obvious one. Does John symbolise the church as a whole elsewhere in scripture (I mean, more than any of the other twelve disciples?)

[Sarah N.]

[Pizza Man]

[AllanS]

So Mary is our new Mother and Intercessor? A pity that Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, didn't see fit to mention her even once in his letters! Nor did Peter, James, John, Jude, or the bloke who wrote Hebrews. For someone so central to our salvation, she gets mighty short shrift.

I think it much more likely that Mary morphed into Queen of Heaven to displace Artemis etc. from the minds of the ancients. You don't get rid of thousands of years of goddess worship overnight. Indeed, Paul's insistence on the silence of women in all the churches was probably an attack on those converts who wanted 'Christian' priestesses and a feminised goddess.

On the up side, even if only the dullest Protestant version of things is true, Mary would have been glorified beyond anything we can imagine, indistinguishable (to our eyes) from the Divine itself. I dare say, since she would now be perfect in love, that she's also very interested in the affairs of our small, sad world, and quite willing to lend a hand.

However, the gap between these cool speculations and hard doctrine is a large one, to my mind.

[John Anthony]

[Stanley Anderson]

[AllanS]

I'm much taken with the fact that there exist an infinite number of truths which are quite unprovable to a finite mind. The existence of God, the identification of God with YHWH, the incarnation of God, the authority of the Church, the glory of Mary, transubstantiation, the forgiveness of sins, life everlasting beyond death... all these seem to be candidates.

Of course, there also exist an infinite number of falsehoods that cannot be disproved. All the above are candidates for this list also.

How to proceed? It's true that Artemis might be a sort of prefiguring of Mary, a collective longing for our true spiritual mother. It's equally possible that Mary is a distorted memory of the true Goddess Artemis, who patiently waits for us to repent and turn back to her, not wishing that any should perish. Or perhaps, as John pointed out, her real name is Guan Yin.

Faith is a gift. It cannot be arrived at by reason, since the object of faith provides reason's foundation.

The question for me becomes: What faith have I already been given? What things do I believe, really believe, without doubt or question. Things like: "Don't murder babies", and "Blessed are the merciful", and "The truth will set you free". Then I need to identify the group (if there is one) who most consistently embodies, nourishes, affirms and defends these beliefs, and join with them. If they also believe that Mary is Queen of Heaven (something I can neither prove nor disprove), that cannot logically be an issue.

[John Anthony]

[AllanS]

Hi John,

My thoughts exactly.

Let's create a -10 to +10 scale of disbelief/belief and define the top 100 doctrines. A score of 1000 will mean you absolutely believe everything. A score of -1000 will mean you're either the devil himself, or a televangelist.

What score will be enough to allow you to join a given church? What score is sufficient to save you?

[Stanley Anderson]

[John Anthony]