Posted on 01/01/2007 3:34:16 PM PST by Salvation
For clarity I think I definitely believe in the trinity. The only reason I am not more dogmatic is because I can't state the "classic definition".
To say that Mary is the mother of God implies that she is older than God, superior to God and co creator of God.
older than GodI'll try to help you out, but all I can think of at the moment is Genesis, -1:-1 -- "Before the beginning, there was Mary."
To say that Mary is the mother of God implies that she is older than God ...I would call it a reasonable inference, not an implication, but so what? If I had never heard of Jesus and Mary and you were to tell me out of the blue that Mary is the mother of Jesus, I would reasonably infer that Mary had conceived in the usual way. Is my reasonable but incorrect inference going to keep you from saying that Mary is the mother of Jesus? Of course not.
The birth of Christ is a unique event. We can throw out the standard inferences. It doesn't matter that every mother we've ever met has borne a human person whom she preexists. Mary is the mother of a Divine Person -- the eternal Word made flesh whose Divinity preexists her humanity, but whose humanity is subsequent to hers.
How is Mary the mother of God? She's the mother of God because she bore in her womb and gave birth to a Person -- not a 'humanity' or a fleshy mass of differentiated cells but a Person, the Word made flesh -- who was, is, and ever will be God.
Okay. Now I'm totally confused. I think you're thinking of the song by The Association?
Just kidding -- except for the confused part.
For MY version of "Classical" Trinitarianism, I'd suggest googling "Athanasian Creed". It formulaically and repetitiously sets out (as I think of it) how to talk about the Trinity without getting into theological trouble. I'd add to it that to the extent that personal metaphors can be used about God (and certainly that's a great extent) I would say that the Godhead is kind of sort of like a society bound by love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Love between them.
THEN as I was trying to say earlier, just as the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, so also the Son is always offering His obedience, His very will to the Father.
I make this analogy, very inadequate: Let God be the act of Speech. Then the Father is that mysterious core from which the idea and the intention to express it arises, the Son is the word, the vibrations in the air or the marks on paper which originate deep in the willing of the Father and convey that will. And the Holy Spirit is the air or the aether. If air, then there is air in the lungs and air between the speaker and the hearer, and even air in the hearer (in the Eustachian tubes) or the ears won't vibrate properly and hearing won't happen. And if we are not to some degree "in the Spirit and the Spirit in us" then we can't/won't hear God.
End of that babble. Now the second babble, first wheeze:
One thing we don't have in Republican America is courtesy titles - much - other than, say, Kentucky Colonel. But in, say England, the wife of a King or the Mother of a King is not necessarily a queen "in her own right". If she also had inherited the throne of Ruritania, then she's a queen "in her own right", but otherwise she is given a courtesy title. So the mother of the current Queen was Queen Elizabeth - by courtesy, not in her own right.
If you can imagine where and when such courtesies were commonplace, it's a tad less anxiety-producing to hear of Mary being called "Queen of Heaven" (which gives me at least as many heebie-jeebies as "Mother of God".)
Second wheeze of the second babble: An impermissible exaltation of Mary is only one of (at least) two possible consequences of calling her "Mother of God". The other, the one that resonates with me is that the Incarnation is an appallingly astounding act of Divine condescension -- one which after all these years we intellectually take for granted, by which we fail to be bowled over as we ought.
I mean, in our quaint sect, the Sunday after Christmas is "Holy Family" Sunday. And this year we read about the whole temple thing -- which ends with
(Luke 2:51a, Dawg translation) He went down with them and they came [COULD be "He came"] to Nazareth, and He was subordinate/submissive/subject/obedient to them.
Now I have a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around that all by itself.
We are talking here about the God who told Moses that it would be death to him to see HIS face, a God who uses earthquakes, mighty winds, and fire the way The Stones use some group nobody ever heard of to open for Him. And he's obedient to some couple in a third world country currently the unwilling tributary of an Empire where they kill people for sport?
So, anyway, I'm going with condescension as the way I cope with it.
We RC's are so adamant about NOT worshipping Mary and so used to being accused of Mariolatry, that it's a joke for us. A priest I know was doing a "Tour of the 'worship space'" at the beginning of an enquirer's class and when they came to the little Mary shrine he said,"That's our idol of Mary. We worship her." And we all laughed.
YES, we think she was a remarkable person, and we are in awe of the gifts God gave her. But it does get a little wearying to be told, despite anything we say, that we do SO worship her. We don't. But we are in awe of what God has done for the universe, the cosmos, through her.
Sorry to be so verbose.
Just kidding -- except for the confused part.Uh, oh, that's not a good sign. I was not being serious. I found the phrase "older than God" pretty darn amusing, and as you suggested at the end of #217, I was merely enjoying the joke and running with it. Please don't start a riot ...
OH!
HUMONGO Sigh of relief!
It's easy to make me look silly when I'm not the one cracking the joke. It's a good lesson in how self-centered and pompous I can be. "You mean OTHER people can be silly? Where does it say THAT?"
Okay guys, put away the riot gear. False alarm.
I appreciate your objection and your gentleness in articulating it ... My alleged understanding would be like this. Just because He (the Son) is obedient, don't mean he wanted to do something else, any more, or kinda like, His being begotten does not mean "There was a time when He did not exist," or "There was when He did not exist." He is eternally begotten and eternally obedient.I wasn't dismissing your idea, Mad Dawg, just thinking aloud. I wanted to get back to you, now that I've had the chance to chew on it for the past two weeks, and let you know that your idea of the eternally obedient Son is really growing on me. Thanks for sharing it.
Did you ever check out in Mere Christianity where Lewis talks about how the Son is "eternally begotten"? He says suppose one book is on top of another. it is held up by the bottom one. Now suppose those books have always been in that position. Then the bottom one has always been holding up the top one, but they're co-eternal (or co-forever, I guess).
That idea was where I got the eternally obedient thing. I'll also say this. If you're making love (I think I remember how that goes ....) there are times when one person "leads", or when the other "leads", but the being led is in a way obedience but there is no renunciation of one's own will.
And there are times when who knows who is leading and who cares? But that, I think, is more like some experiences of being led by God.
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