Posted on 01/24/2015 3:23:43 PM PST by NYer
In my new book, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines, , I spend most of its pages in classic apologetic defense of Mary as Mother of God, defending her immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, assumption into heaven, her Queenship, and her role in God’s plan of salvation as Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix. But perhaps my most important contributions in the book may well be how I demonstrate each of these doctrines to be crucial for our spiritual lives and even our salvation.
And I should note that this applies to all of the Marian doctrines. Not only Protestants, but many Catholics will be surprised to see how the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, for example, is crucial for all Christians to understand lest they misapprehend the truth concerning the sacred, marriage, sacraments, the consecrated life, and more.
I won’t attempt to re-produce the entire book in this post, but I will choose one example among examples I use to demonstrate why Mary as Mother of God not only matters, but how denying this dogma of the Faith can end in the loss of understanding of “the one true God and Jesus Christ whom [God] has sent” (John 17:3). It doesn’t get any more serious than that!
In my book, I use the teaching of the late, well-known, and beloved Protestant Apologist, Dr. Walter Martin, as one of my examples. In his classic apologetics work, Kingdom of the Cults, Dr. Martin, gives us keen insight into why the dogma of the Theotokos (“God-bearer,” a synonym with “Mother of God”) is such a “big deal.” But first some background information.
Truth and Consequences
It is very easy to state what it is that you don’t believe. That has been the history of Protestantism. Protestantism itself began as a… you guessed it… “protest.” “We are against this, this, this, and this.” It was a “protest” against Catholicism. However, the movement could not continue to exist as a protestant against something. It had to stand for something. And that is when the trouble began. When groups of non-infallible men attempted to agree, the result ended up being the thousands of Protestant sects we see today.
Dr. Walter Martin was a good Protestant. He certainly and boldly proclaimed, “I do not believe Mary is the Mother of God.” That’s fine and good. The hard part came when he had to build a theology congruent with his denial. With Dr. Martin, it is difficult to know for sure whether his bad Christology came before or after his bad Mariology—I argue it was probably bad Christology that came first—but let’s just say for now that in the process of theologizing about both Jesus and Mary, he ended up claiming Mary was “the mother of Jesus’ body,” and not the Mother of God. He claimed Mary “gave Jesus his human nature alone,” so that we cannot say she is the Mother of God; she is the mother of the man, Jesus Christ.
This radical division of humanity and divinity manifests itself in various ways in Dr. Martin’s theology. He claimed, for example, that “sonship” in Christ has nothing at all to do with God in his eternal relations within the Blessed Trinity. In Martin’s Christology, divinity and humanity are so sharply divided that he concluded “eternal sonship” to be an unbiblical Catholic invention. On page 103 of his 1977 edition of The Kingdom of the Cults, he wrote:
[T]here cannot be any such thing as eternal Sonship, for there is a logical contradiction of terminology due to the fact that the word “Son” predicates time and the involvement of creativity. Christ, the Scripture tells us, as the Logos, is timeless, “…the Word was in the beginning” not the Son!
From Martin’s perspective then, Mary as “Mother of God” is a non-starter. If “Son of God” refers to Christ as the eternal son, then there would be no denying that Mary is the mother of the Son of God, who is God; hence, Mother of God would be an inescapable conclusion. But if sonship only applies to “time and creativity,” then references to Mary’s “son” would not refer to divinity at all.
But there is just a little problem here. Beyond the fact that you don’t even need the term “Son” at all to determine Mary is the Mother God because John 1:14 tells us “the Word was made flesh,” and John 1:1 tells us “the Word was God;” thus, Mary is the mother of the Word and so she is the Mother of God anyway, the sad fact is that in the process of Martin’s theologizing he ended up losing the real Jesus. Notice, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is no longer the Eternal Son! And it gets worse from here, if that is possible! Martin would go on:
The term “Son” itself is a functional term, as is the term “Father” and has no meaning apart from time. The term “Father” incidentally never carries the descriptive adjective “eternal” in Scripture; as a matter of fact, only the Spirit is called eternal (“the eternal Spirit”—Hebrews 9:14), emphasizing the fact that the words Father and Son are purely functional as previously stated.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of what we are saying here. Jesus revealed to us the essential truth that God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in his inner life. For Martin, God would be father by analogy in relation to the humanity of Christ, but not in the eternal divine relations; hence, he is not the eternal Father. So, not only did Dr. Martin end up losing Jesus, the eternal Son; he lost the Father as well! This compels us to ask the question: Who then is God, the Blessed Trinity, in eternity, according to Dr. Walter Martin and all those who agree with his theology? He is not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He must be the eternal … Blah… the Word, and the Holy Spirit (Martin did teach Christ to be the Eternal Word, just not the Eternal Son). He would become a father by analogy when he created the universe and again by analogy at the incarnation of the Word and through the adoption of all Christians as “sons of God.” But he would not be the eternal Father. The metaphysical problems begin here and continue to eternity… literally. Let us now summarize Dr. Martin’s teaching and some of the problems it presents:
1. Fatherhood and Sonship would not be intrinsic to God. The Catholic Church understands that an essential aspect of Christ’s mission was to reveal God to us as he is in his inner life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Jews already understood God to be father by analogy, but they had no knowledge of God as eternal Father in relation to the Eternal Son. In Jesus’ great high priestly prayer in John 17, he declared his Father was Father “before the world was made” and thus, to quote CCC 239, in “an unheard-of sense.” In fact, Christ revealed God’s name as Father. Names in Hebrew culture reveal something about the character of the one named. Thus, he reveals God to be Father, not just that he is like a father. God never becomes Father; he is the eternal Father
2. If Sonship applies only to humanity and time, the “the Son” would also be extrinsic, or outside, if you will, of the Second Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, as much as he would have denied it, Dr. Martin effectively creates two persons to represent Christ—one divine and one human. This theology leads to the logical conclusion that the person who died on the cross 2,000 years ago would have been merely a man. If that were so, he would have no power to save us. Scripture reveals Christ as the savior, not merely a delegate of God the savior. He was fully man in order to make fitting atonement for us. He was fully God in order to have the power to save us.
3. This theology completely reduces the revelation of God in the New Covenant that separates Christianity from all religions of the world. Jesus revealed God as he is from all eternity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Dr. Martin reduces this to mere function. Thus, “Father” does not tell us who God is, only what God does. Radical feminists do something similar when they refuse to acknowledge God as “Father.” God becomes reduced to that which he does as “Creator, Redeeemer, and Sanctifier” and int he process where is a truly tragic loss of the knowledge of who God is. In the case of Dr. Walter Martin, it was bad theology that lead to a similar loss.
4. There is a basic metaphysical principle found, for example, in Malachi 3:6, that comes into play here as well: “For I the Lord do not change.” In defense of Dr. Martin, he did seem to realize that one cannot posit change in the divine persons. As stated above, “fatherhood” and “sonship” wold not relate to divinity at all in his way of thinking. Thus, he became a proper Nestorian (though he would never have admitted that) that divides Christ into two persons. And that is bad enough. However, one must be very careful here because when one posits the first person of the Blessed Trinity became the Father, and the second person of the Blessed Trinity became the Son, it becomes very easy to slip into another heresy that would admit change into the divine persons. Later in Behold Your Mother, I employ the case of a modern Protestant apologist who regrettably takes that next step. But you’ll have to get the book to read about that one.
The bottom line here is this: It appears Dr. Walter Martin’s bad Christology led to a bad Mariology. But I argue in Behold Your Mother that if he would have understood Mary as Theotokos, it would have been impossible for him to lose his Christological bearings. The moment the thought of sonship as only applying to humanity in Christ would have arisen, a Catholic Dr. Walter Martin would have known that Mary is Mother of God. He would have lost neither the eternal Son nor the eternal Father because Theotokos would have guarded him from error. The prophetic words of Lumen Gentium 65 immediately come to mind: “Mary… unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith.” A true Mariology serves as a guarantor against bad Christology.
No, but it needs to be emphasized when those statements that Luther made which the vast majority of Protestants disagree with are brought into view.
Much like the Pope today is roundly criticized by many Catholics when he says stupid stuff.
1 Timothy 2:5 King James Version (KJV)
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
I have a question. If our resurrected bodies are like the angels, NO gender, how can Mary be a queen?
She will undoubtedly be held in high honor in the new heaven/earth, and I have the ultimate respect for her, but for me the Holy Spirit is my spiritual mother.
Except for Mary, whom the angel acknowledged as “full of Grace.” How could she become so prior to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, unless, as Catholics hold, she was specially gifted through God’s will to be born without original sin?
Prediction:
There will be lots of comments accusing Catholics of making Mary into God, worshiping Mary, etc.
There will be lots of comments claiming that the title “Mother of God” means that Mary is the mother of the eternal Triune God, and pre-existed the eternal Triune God.
When it is explained for the billionth time that the title “Mother of God” does not mean, and has never meant, anything so moronic, the explanations will be ignored.
There will be NO comments from the usual suspects confronting, point by point by point, the Christological and Trinitarian problems that arise when Mary is denied the title “Mother of God.”
The Roman catholic Mary has come down here and given promises for praying her rosary..
Along with the contradictions of scripture in those promises, she points to her son, Jesus.,
It took the testimony of His Word and the Word that became flesh to show this Mary was a lying prophetess when I tested her words.
But problem is, this lying prophetess points to Jesus in her promise too..
No lie every points to Truth..
And it is a sticky question for Protestants (I was one) because there really isn’t a protestant Jesus although scripture speaks of other jesuses..
The Jesus that Rome worships is the exact same the protestants worship..
What if that is ‘another jesus’ , a substitute one? An in place of one that takes the place of the real Savior?
I can tell you this, Paul didn’t preach December 25, good Friday or easter Sunday..
He preached the gospel with Passover, Lamb and First Fruits..
If the enemy wasn’t a master counterfeiter, we wouldn’t have to be on watch for counterfeits that just look like the real deal..
Maybe the mother church’s Greco roman Latin Mary is indeed a counterfeit for the genuine hebrew mother, and the lying counterfeit just points to her Greco roman Latin counterfeit son..
It can explain the thousands of different versions of truth that is around all of her daughter churches.,
They all start with the false premise that the mother church represents the genuine Messiah of Israel, as opposed to calling her a counterfeit..
And then argue her and her members like she has any standing..
But she does, with protestants.. you see it with their holy sabbath of Sunday.. their holy December 25.. their holy good Friday, holy easter..
None of those are found in scripture... but protestants are a little less likely to see that inconsistency to scripture in their own worship when the mother goes way off the rails in their eyes..
Prophetic that there is a verse describing the ‘mother of harlots’.. means her daughters are not any better !
You can see the circular arguments back and forth...
And those that can recognize babylon, we are called to come out of her..
Praise Yah He has led me away from religion and closer to the genuine..
Genuine Truth that turns all religion and the systems of this world on its head..And causes one to see this world as one big counterfeit after another..
Thanks for your response.
I read it all.
I’m not sure I get your bottom line message (perhaps I am dumb) but appreciate it.
Will be back later to most likely see zilch in that regard.
Many saints are spoken of as experiencing God's grace.
In fact all saints are full of God's grace, having not earned salvation on their own.
Ok, Catholics make Mary into a goddess. How’s that? What Catholics don’t seem to understand is that Spirit filled believers see with opened eyes. Catholics have attributed attributes that only belong to God to Mary and their saints.
Angels can't be multiple places at one time.
Co-redemptrix? co-mediatrix? crucial to our salvation? Christ alone provides this.
Funny...haven't seen any yet.
Wow! Great work in those two posts. The apostasy of the Catholic Church is obvious and pervasive.
Mary was NEVER described as “full of grace”. That phrase does NOT exist in the Greek except for Christ and Stephen.
Where do you get the notion that our risen bodies will have no gender (sex)? Jesus, after the Resurrection, was clearly a man. Mary Magdalene took him for the gardener. The disciples on the way to Emmaus recognized him as a man. (They would never have walked along talking to a strange woman!)
Jesus said that, in heaven, there will be no marrying. It is only in that sense that the risen will be "like the angels."
It’s Saturday night. Just wait until the bars close.
There are absolutely no problems with that if one understands what scripture is saying.
While many Protestants would disagree, I, as a CatholicCatholic would counter that all saints are, by definition, in a state of grace, but that most Christians are not saints (myself included). However, i have hope to be one eventually.
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