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Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby mitchellmckain » March 13th, 2009, 2:15 pm

I believe that the original controversy about calling Mary "the mother of God" became mired in the talk of the two natures of Christ and thus in the limitations of the antiquated metaphysics of the age. But we have another example to draw from in which a scientific understanding can be helpful and thus avoid being misled by medieval metaphysics, which has more to do with the human language than the nature of reality. This is the example of two kinds of parents that human beings can have: biological parents and the parents that raised them. From one set we have the biological inheritance, the DNA that makes us biologically human, and from the other we have the inheritance of mind which I believe is where our true humanity lies. It is my belief that by the first, we are bretheren to all the forms of life on this planet, and by the second we are the children of God for I believe that this inheritance of mind first comes from God.

Thus to look at Mary's relationship to Jesus, I think a theoretical understanding of what it means to be a parent as the contributor of information and as one who provides a protected and nurturing environment is quite helpful. Clearly Mary provided the nurturing womb in which the infant Jesus grew and clearly she played the most important role in raising the child as well. The fact that Jesus was a carpenter like Joseph makes it clear that Joseph's role as a father in raising Jesus was also just as substantial as any father who raises a child. Perhaps we cannot say with too much clarity or certainty where the biological inheritance for Jesus came from, but that is the least important question as far as I am concerned.

But in any case, although Mary may have contributed information and a nurturing environment that played a role in the growth and development of human body and mind of Jesus, we must ask whether she made any contribution that played a role in the growth and development of Christ's divnity in any way. Clearly not! Chrisitians are not adoptionists that believe that Jesus became God and so since Jesus was always God then it is clear that Mary did not contribute to Christ's divinity in any way whatsoever. For that reason I think it is absurd to call Mary the "mother of God". The relationship between Mary and God is one of Mary being the the child and God being the parent.

There are logical difficulties here to be sure, for the following simple syllogism seems valid:

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

But this is only the consequence of the deceptive simplicity of human language which makes statements that sound like absolutes when in reality they are no such thing. Mary is the mother of Jesus only in a certain sense even though this is the sense that is most typically used because the word typically refers to human relationships, but we also know that Mary's father is God in a sense quite different from the usual sense of human relationships, and this suggests to me that we have two very difference senses operating in the two first statements of the syllogism making them incompatable so that the syllogism is not valid and its conclusion cannot be drawn.

BUT I will speak to the problem in the original controversy to say that this should not be construed as a reason for a seperation in Christ between the human and the divine. I would in fact say that all that is human in Jesus in all its finitude and vulnerability is still an act of God and thus an expression of His divinity for it is by His infinitude and omnipotence that He could become fully human in the way that He did -- a power over Himself that is difficult for us to fathom.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby Stanley Anderson » March 13th, 2009, 3:31 pm

Whatever the actual justification (whether one agrees with it or not) for using the phrase "Mother of God", I suspect a lot of objection to the term can be traced to the idea that "motherhood" precedes fatherhood, or even precedes, in divine terms, the begotten. (And I would say this idea can often be held as a kind of subconscious a priori assumption so that the person holding it may not even be aware that it is being assumed but simply draws conclusions without realizing it is being used in the process).
So, with this assumption, there is an inherent conclusion that if God has a mother then the mother must somehow be "above" God and therefore has more claim to be "God" herself than the supposed god she is claimed to be the mother of.

I don't know if that assumption is part of your internal process (conscious or not) and objection to the phrase, but I would just make clear that this is not what the Catholic view is. Even though some religions might use "motherhood" as the root (eg "Mother Earth" and such), Christianity (and Catholicism in particular)sees it as a created thing. Genesis even shows the Eve as being brought out of the Adam and not the other way around as we might narrowly and naively "scientifically" imagine if we were devising a creation story ourselves. (As it is, even in evolutionary thought, "motherhood" came rather late into the game I believe.)

So however God can, in his mysterious way, cause his very creation to "beget" his nature (talk about circular references and tail-eating serpents! :smile: ), the phrase "Mother of God" is, for me (as an admittedly biased Catholic who is obliged to accept it anyway), a perfectly reasonable one, both in terms of accepting the doctrine on Church authority, but also simply in terms of it not seeming self-contradictory or meaningless. One may have other objections, but if one can wriggle around the assumption of motherhood preceding fatherhood and the divine as I have suggested above, it is at least something one can "work with".

By the way, I would also note that even though you mention DNA in the first paragraph, in the second paragraph you write "Clearly Mary provided the nurturing womb in which the infant Jesus grew..." and perhaps you meant for the DNA reference to carry over. And if so, that is good. But because it is separated from that reference, and because it seems to be another of those "unconsciously held" assumptions held by many people that Mary was simply a sort of "conduit" or "tube" which Jesus "slid through" to get from his heavenly "place" down to earth, I would clarify that Christ's humanity was "woven" (if I can use that term) from the very DNA of Mary so that she was an integral part of his being and not just a "carrier" of the divine fetus as though she were some kind of surrogate mother. You may not have intended that meaning, but it is easy for others to miss that so I wanted to clarify at least what the orthodox intention is.

--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby mitchellmckain » March 13th, 2009, 4:21 pm

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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby Stanley Anderson » March 13th, 2009, 4:51 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby mitchellmckain » March 13th, 2009, 9:19 pm

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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby Stanley Anderson » March 14th, 2009, 2:30 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby postodave » March 14th, 2009, 10:41 pm

Daughter of the Father
Mother of the Son
Spouse of the Spirit
So I drew my sword and got ready
But the lamb ran away with the crown
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby mitchellmckain » March 15th, 2009, 1:14 pm

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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby Stanley Anderson » March 15th, 2009, 3:26 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby Stanley Anderson » March 15th, 2009, 8:42 pm

(by the way, it appears that you must have edited your post sometime between when I read it and before I posted my reply, since there seem to be additions and corrections to your post - eg, the incorrect reference to my quoting the three-line bit that was really posted by postodave, as well as extra Scriptural references, etc)

(Unavoidable in the "real-time" effect of posting sequentially with the expected time delays, but I just wanted to clarify that for anyone reading my post that may have been confused by, say, my "correction" of your quote attribution)

--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby postodave » March 15th, 2009, 9:39 pm

So I drew my sword and got ready
But the lamb ran away with the crown
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby agingjb » March 15th, 2009, 10:24 pm

I don't pretend to understand the Marian dogmas (they were not a part of the beliefs of my former church) - but the Immaculate Conception has always seemed either to imply that anyone could have been freed from original sin, or that there was something special about the (non-biblical?) St Anne.

And the Bodily Assumption, together with the Ascension, would imply that the DNA of those involved in the Incarnation is inaccessible - does that also imply that considering the Divine Y chromosome is an improper curiosity?

As I say, I really haven't a clue, so I hope these ramblings don't upset anyone.

So, from this position of ignorance, dare I say that "Sister of the Spirit" would make more sense to me than "Spouse of the Spirit"
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby mitchellmckain » March 16th, 2009, 12:26 am

Last edited by mitchellmckain on March 16th, 2009, 5:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby Peter P » March 16th, 2009, 1:01 am

This is a fascinating and excellent discussion - thanks.

Can't add anything at this point, but my feeling (and I mean just that, i.e. my "feeling" as opposed to a thought-out position or theological knowledge) is that there must be a place for the Mother - the Material - the Matter....a place in our theology for that which (She Who) connects the utterly unknowable to this time and place (to Time and Place).

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Re: Mother of God, is this title appropriate?

Postby rusmeister » March 16th, 2009, 1:28 am

The problem with all such discussions becomes one of what you accept as Authority to define the faith you accept. Catholics, as well as Orthodox (and possibly others), admit that the issues are beyond what they could figure out on their own - that even having the Bible in front of them in their native language does not enable them to truly clarify the matter. Other Christians, who claim that their Authority is the Bible, do not identify the authority that interprets the Bible for them, for the obvious reason that the authority is self. That, I think, puts the problem of Sola Scriptura into one sentence and eliminates the sophistry. Thus, the individual C/O Christian cannot hold an individual opinion on dogma, based merely on what they personally know and have read. Non-C/O Christians can, and so everyone's opinion is their own dogma. That's how you break a religion into a million denominations - make personal interpretation of oral or written Tradition (2 Thess 2:15) the ultimate authority. The individual is supreme.

In Orthodoxy, it depends on the language, but the Russian "Bogoroditsa" (Birth-giver of God) and the Greek "Theotokos" (ditto) accurately describe what Mary did for Christ. She did literally give birth to Him, He was uncreated and existed before all the ages, He did say "I keep sending you prophets..." and "before Abraham was, I AM". The title, which, until fairly recently, was rendered in English as "the Mother of God" has been phased out in favor of the Greek term - and I would say it is because of the misunderstandings caused by the history of English-speaking countries, dominated by Protestantism - which, without reference to the more ancient Christian Tradition (being of necessity limited to post-16th century in any such reference) understood the term automatically as "Mother of God the Father", which is not what the term means at all. For us, the trinity is a Mystery, and we're OK with that. How it is that God can be Three and One, how it is that Mary can be the Theotokos but not the mother of God the Father is a Mystery to us - and that's OK. Who said we need to understand God?

In all Church language and references, the term "Theotokos" is generally used for direct address, although various permutations of "Mother (of God, of Christ, the Savior, etc)" are also encountered and make no waves. We don't take such references to mean "Mother of the Father".
"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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