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Steve Hays of\u00a0Tribalblogue<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is an anti-Catholic polemicist and sophist. I\u2019ll be responding to the relevant portions of Steve\u2019s article,\u00a0\u201cTheotokos\u201d\u00a0<\/a>(12-19-17,\u00a0Tribalblogue<\/em>). His words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Because \u201cmother of God\u201d is equivocal, Catholics use that as a wedge issue. They try to get evangelicals to agree on an orthodox sense of the title, swap that out and swap in a different meaning, then use their bait-n-switch to promote their legendary Marian dogmas.<\/span><\/p>\n . . .\u00a0we should reject equivocal usage, where the evangelical side means one thing, the Catholic side means something else, and the Catholic side substitutes their meaning for our meaning, as if we made a substantive concession.<\/span><\/p>\n Nonsense. Rather, the situation is that many Protestants absurdly misunderstand<\/em> what we mean<\/em> by \u201cMother of God\u201d or Theotokos<\/em> (literally, \u201cGod-bearer\u201d): even though much of historical Protestantism (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Lutheranism, Anglicanism) fully accepted the term (or if not the very term \u2014 as with Calvin \u2014 , the exact notion<\/em> that it conveys) in the same sense that we do. But the ones who are ignorant of both historical theology and especially historical Marian theology then project their own confusion back onto our use of the term.<\/p>\n Thus, it is not our supposed equivocation that is the problem; it is their blissful ignorance and lack of comprehension of what may be somewhat subtle, but is not, alas, rocket science.<\/p>\n The confessional Lutheran Book of Concord<\/em>\u00a0(Epitome of the Formula of Concord<\/em><\/a>), states:<\/p>\n 10]<\/span><\/a>\u00a06. Hence we believe, teach, and confess that God is man and man is God, which could not be if the divine and human natures had in deed and truth absolutely no communion with one another.<\/p>\n 11]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0For how could the man, the son of Mary, in truth be called or be God, or the Son of God the Most High, if His humanity were not personally united with the Son of God, and He thus had realiter, that is, in deed and truth, nothing in common with Him except only the name of God?<\/p>\n 12]<\/span><\/a>\u00a07. Hence we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she also is rightly called and truly is the mother of God. (section VIII: \u201cThe Person of Christ\u201d, from the year 1577)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As for Anglicans, consider the view of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626). The Wikipedia article<\/a> on him describes his importance within Anglicanism:<\/p>\n an English bishop and scholar, who held high positions in the\u00a0Church of England\u00a0during the reigns of\u00a0Elizabeth I\u00a0and\u00a0James I. During the latter\u2019s reign, Andrewes served successively as\u00a0Bishop of Chichester,\u00a0of Ely, and\u00a0of Winchester\u00a0and oversaw the translation of the\u00a0King James Version of the Bible<\/i>\u00a0(or\u00a0Authorized Version<\/i>). . . .<\/p>\n As a churchman he was typically\u00a0Anglican, equally removed from the\u00a0Puritan\u00a0and the Roman positions. . . .<\/p>\n Andrewes was considered, next to\u00a0Ussher, to be the most learned churchman of his day, and enjoyed a great reputation as an eloquent and impassioned preacher . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Andrewes wrote about Mother of God<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n She became the\u00a0Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man\u2019s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the\u00a0Mother of God\u00a0. . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the\u00a0Mother of God. (Commentary on the Magnificat<\/i>, 1521; Luther\u2019s Works <\/em>[LW], Vol. XXI, 326)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A guy of Steve\u2019s anti-Catholic mentality and many other Protestants might say, \u201cbut that was early<\/em> <\/strong>Luther, when he had barely extricated himself from the clutches of Holy Mother Rome.\u201d Very well, then, here are four more quotations from 1539: just seven years before he died:<\/p>\n [S]he is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the\u00a0Mother of God. . . . it is certain that Mary is the\u00a0Mother of the real and true God. (Sermon on John 14:16<\/i>, 1539, LW, Vol. XXIV, 107)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We, too, know very well that Christ did not derive his deity from Mary; but it does not follow that it must, therefore, be false to say,\u00a0\u201cGod was born of Mary\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cGod is Mary\u2019s Son\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cMary is God\u2019s mother.\u201d (On the Councils and the Church<\/i>, 1539;\u00a0Works of Martin Luther<\/i>\u00a0[PE], edited and translated by C. M. Jacobs and A. T. W. Steinhaeuser et al; Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Co. and the Castle Press, 1930, six volumes; also reprinted by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1982; Vol. V, 218)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He [Nestorius] admits that Christ is God and man in one Person; but since His deity does not come from His mother, Mary, she ought not to be called the\u00a0mother of God. This was rightly condemned in the council, and ought to be condemned. (Ibid<\/i>., PE, Vol. V, 219)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mary is the true, natural mother of the child called Jesus Christ, and the true\u00a0mother and bearer of God\u00a0. . . Mary suckled God, rocked God, made broth and soup for God. For God and man are one Person, one Christ, one Son, one Jesus, not two persons . . . just as your son is not two sons . . . even though he has two natures, body and soul, \u2014 body from you, soul from God alone.\u00a0 (Ibid<\/i>., PE, Vol. V, 220)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Calvin\u00a0concurred:<\/p>\n She [Elizabeth] calls Mary the\u00a0mother of her Lord. This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who was begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time,\u00a0the eternal God.\u00a0\u00a0(Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels<\/i>,\u00a0comment under Luke 1:43<\/a>;\u00a0Calvini Opera<\/i>,\u00a0ibid<\/i>., vol. 45, 35)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In his standard biography, Zwingli<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. ), G. R. Potter observed about this important early Protestant leader (p. 89, footnote 5<\/a>): \u201che insisted upon the certainty of the perpetual virginity of the mother of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Early Protestant \u201creformer\u201d Heinrich Bullinger was also of like mind:<\/p>\n The Virgin Mary . . . completely sanctified by the grace and blood of her only Son and abundantly endowed by the gift of the Holy Spirit and preferred to all . . . now lives happily with Christ in heaven and is called and remains ever-Virgin and\u00a0Mother of God. (from: Hilda Graef,\u00a0Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion<\/i>, combined edition of volumes 1 and 2, London: Sheed & Ward, 1965, vol. 2: 14-15)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n All of these men understand the term (or concept<\/em>\u00a0in Calvin\u2019s case, since he avoided the title itself<\/em>) in exactly the same sense as Catholics do.<\/p>\n Holy Scripture teaches that:<\/p>\n 1) Jesus is God (many many biblical proofs).<\/p>\n 2) Mary is His true mother (Is 7:14; Matt 1:16, 18; 2:11, 13, 20; 12:46; Lk 1:31, 35, 43; Jn 1:15; 2:1; Gal 4:4).<\/p>\n Ergo, \u201cMary is the Mother of God\u201d [the Son].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n James Cardinal Gibbons explains the doctrine of\u00a0Theotokos\u00a0<\/i>very well (roundly refuting Hays\u2019 outrageous claim above):<\/p>\n We affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, who in His divine nature is from all eternity begotten of the Father, consubstantial with Him, was in the fullness of time again begotten, by being born of the Virgin, thus taking to Himself, from her maternal womb, a human nature of the same substance with hers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But it may be said the Blessed Virgin is not the Mother of the Divinity. She had not, and she could not have, any part in the generation of the Word of God, for that generation is eternal; her maternity is temporal. He is her Creator; she is His creature. Style her, if you will, the Mother of the man Jesus or even of the human nature of the Son of God, but not the Mother of God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I shall answer this objection by putting a question. Did the mother who bore us have any part in the production of our\u00a0soul<\/i>? Was not this nobler part of our being the work of God alone? And yet who would for a moment dream of saying \u201cthe mother of my body,\u201d and not \u201cmy<\/i>\u00a0mother?\u201d . . . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In like manner, . . . the Blessed Virgin, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly His Mother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is in this sense that the title\u00a0Mother of God<\/i>, denied by Nestorius, was vindicated to her by the General Council of Ephesus, in 431; in this sense, and in no other, has the Church called her by that title.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hence, by immediate and necessary consequence, follow her surpassing dignity and excellence. (The Faith of Our Fathers<\/i><\/a>, New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, revised edition, 1917, 137-138)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n iii) Likewise, a formulation that\u2019s innocent in one context may be imprudent in another. There are perfectly innocent, acceptable theological formulations of the Incarnation or Trinity use with Christians in a popular context that I wouldn\u2019t use in philosophical theology or that I wouldn\u2019t use when debating a unitarian.<\/span><\/p>\n The Christian Church throughout history has always devised orthodox formulae and exacting expressions of true theological doctrines. This is one of them, from an ecumenical council. There is nothing \u201cimprudent\u201d<\/span> about it at all. Steve is simply descending to his usual sophistry and obscurantism: missing the forest for the trees, as he almost always does.<\/p>\n iv) There\u2019s no obligation to use invented Marian titles. Sure, we can and should use extrabiblical terminology for various things, but I reserve the right to choose which extrabiblical terms I use. That can\u2019t be foisted on me by someone with their own agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s free to reject classical theological formulations, accepted by Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, many Anglicans and other Protestants, Martin Luther, Zwingli, Bullinger, etc. But if he wants to do so, he needs to be intellectually honest about being in a tiny heterodox minority among the various portions of historic Christianity.<\/p>\n v) you\u2019re allowing Catholics to frame the debate. And it gets off track, because it becomes a debate over Mary rather than Jesus. A strategic shift in focus. We don\u2019t need to start with Mary to expound NT Christology: we can go straight to what-all the NT has to say about Jesus, which is abundant. Any discussion of Mary can and should be secondary to the direct, primary NT evidence regarding the nature of the Incarnation.<\/span><\/p>\n Not really. This was the decree and understanding of the early, united universal Christian Church: some 600 years before Catholicism and Orthodoxy split and 1100 or so before the tragic schism of the so-called \u201cReformation.\u201d That\u2019s why even Luther, Zwingli, Bullinger, many early Anglicans, the Lutheran confessions, and [in concept<\/em>] even John Calvin agreed with it. Theotokos<\/em> is<\/em><\/strong> primarily about Jesus Christ<\/em>. It was declared precisely<\/em> to safeguard the incarnation and belief that Jesus was God in the flesh (hence, Mary as His mother is the mother of God [the Son]). The Nestorianism that it was intended to counter was a\u00a0Christological<\/em> heresy, not a Marian heresy.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t need to go through Mariology to arrive at Christology. The NT has little to say about Mary but tons to say about Jesus, unsurprisingly.<\/span><\/p>\n Exactly! That\u2019s why we always observe that he relatively little Mariology in the NT was directly about Jesus Christ. That was God\u2019s intention. As a result (for the very same reason), most of the Marian doctrines developed far more after the period of the writing of Scripture (first century). That follows from what Steve just asserted (with which we agree), yet he wants to have it both ways: have his cake and eat it, too.<\/p>\n After asserting that the NT is overwhelmingly focused on Christ our Lord, he would no doubt complain that the Marian doctrines were late to develop, and make out that this is somehow indicative of their falsity<\/em>: even though trinitarian<\/em> doctrine also<\/em> developed through history up till at least the 7th century, when major, influential Christological heresies like monophysitism and monothelitism (after the earlier heresies of Arianism and Sabellianism were pretty much vanquished) were still being fought and refuted by orthodox churchmen.<\/p>\n It\u2019s double standards and historical blindness all the way with this sort of anti-Catholic nonsense.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Related Reading<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThis also goes to the tactical blunder of letting your opponent define the terms of debate. That rigs the outcome in his favor.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n
Neither are we unmindful to bless Thee,\u00a0for the most holy, pure,
\nhighly blessed, the Mother of God, Mary the eternal Virgin, with all the Saints:<\/div>\nRecommending ourselves and our whole life to Thee,<\/div>\nO Lord, our Christ and God:<\/div>\nFor to Thee belongeth glory, honour, and worship. Amen.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nFor more on classical Anglicanism and Mother of God<\/em>, see \u201cBlessed Virgin:\u00a0Mary and the Anglican Tradition,\u201d<\/a> by\u00a0Dr Colin Podmore (2014). See also:\u00a0\u201cEvangelicals and the Mother of God\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(First Things<\/i>, February 2007), by Baptist Timothy George.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nMartin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, understood the correct historical (and continuing Catholic) meaning:<\/div>\n\nii) The Theotokos is a half-truth. As such, it can be misleading, and Catholic apologists exploit that. There\u2019s nothing wrong with avoiding formulations that are half-truths.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nTheotokos, while having a grain of truth, is far from strictly accurate. For one thing, the Trinity is God, but Mary isn\u2019t the birth-mother of the Trinity.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nNo one<\/em>\u00a0(who knows anything about historical orthodox Christian theology and specifically Mariology and Christology at all) is saying that Mary is the \u201cbirth-mother of the Trinity\u201d<\/span>: which is as asinine and blasphemous as it is ignorant. The very term Theotokos<\/em> means literally \u201cGod-bearer\u201d (i.e., one who gives birth to God\u201d). Only one person of the Trinity was born of a human being<\/em>: Jesus Christ the God-Man \/ God incarnate. No eminent Catholic or Orthodox in the history of the Church (in agreement with the majority of Protestant founders and thinkers) ever said otherwise.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\nLikewise, what Mary actually bore was the body of Jesus, which is in union his rational soul, while his body and soul are in union with the Son. But that\u2019s two steps removing from giving birth to God.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nTo be theologically orthodox requires precision thought and precision formulations, not equivocations and half-truths.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThis is precisely the Nestorian heresy of Christotokos<\/em> which was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Yet here is Steve Hays spouting it in the year 2017, and being so ignorant that he\u2019s not even aware<\/em> of how heretical and blasphemous this is. This is so stupid it\u2019s almost as if he is deliberately engaging in parody or engaging in a ruse, just to see if he can get away with it, for fun.<\/div>\n\nMary Mother of God: Dialogue w Evangelical Protestant<\/a>\u00a0[1-21-02]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nMary \u201cMother of God\u201d: Greater than God the Father?<\/a>\u00a0[8-31-06]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u201cMother of God\u201d: Quick, Effective Biblical Proof<\/a>\u00a0[12-11-08]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nJohn Calvin\u2019s Objection to the Term, \u201cMother of God\u201d<\/a>\u00a0[5-9-13]<\/div>\n