On The Blessed Mother Of God

[Evangetholic]

No Christian denies that Blessed Mary (may all men submit to the authoritative teaching of Scripture and call her blessed) is the Mother of God. To do so is to deny that her son is divine--which definitionally puts one outside of the Christian religion ['tis a good word more evangelicals should use it]. Having said that, conceding that she is God's Mother, conceding even that there is no pressing reason to assume that she was anything other than a lifelong virgin (the unambiguous voice of Christian tradition, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Oriental Orthodox says as much), please explain to me using the Scriptures the other fantastical claims that are made for her by the Roman Catholic Church.

[MIKolbe]

Are you looking just for "Chapter/Verse", or are you looking for an explanation of these 'Chapters and Verses" in light of the Tradition of the Church?

 

If it is the former, ok I guess, that should be easy enough. Could you provide a list of the fantastical claims you speak of? 

 

If it is the latter, I would assume a fantastical list would still need to be provided.  However, I would recommend taking one fantastical claim at a time, as we are talking 2000 years of thought, prayer, and scholarship have gone into these claims, making it challenging (at least for me because I am not that smart) to be as succinct as you may desire.  Perhaps after a list of these fantastical claims are made, you can open one thread per fantastical claim?  This would most likely help keep things on target and focused....getting, more fully, to the answers you desire.

 

This, of course, is assuming you are asking questions to learn something and not to keep from learning something.

 

I think if you are open to coming to an understanding of why we believe what we believe as it concerns Mariology (separate from actually believing what we believe), the discussion will be more fruitful. 

 

 

 

 

 

[MIKolbe]

Also, using Scripture, I would like Chapter and Verse from you, or an explanation in light of the Tradition of your Church, of the fantastical claims of your Church.

 

But we can do this later....

[Evangetholic]

 I am a believer in Sola Scriptura, not the Catholic caricature of Sola Scriptura (unschooled Bible Onlyism--which sadly does describe some Protestants), but the actual doctrine--so I have no understanding how one could understand some parts of Scripture without the wholesome light of Christian tradition. As for my church's traditions I claim the whole body of Christian thought as my own and am attached to no particular part of the visible church more than any other, beyond being broadly Protestant, Evangelical, Reformed, and Catholic--I'll bow my head and raise my voice with any community of Trinitarians who will have me.

 

The Immaculate Conception seems a good place to start. I think the doctrine undermines the uniqueness of Christ, as the One Sinless Man, the Spotless Sacrifical Lamb and that it has no possible scriptural basis. 

 

The Bible says in Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I have read various Catholic treatments of this verse but none of them are satisfying to me. If Blessed Mary is human and not also named Jesus then she may not be sinless. Indeed as a daughter of Adam, she must necessarily have been born into moral corruption, chained to sin and death, and redeemed only when she believed her Son's death and resurrection. Could God have spared from original sin? Yes. Did he? The Bible doesn't say so.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2013 by Evangetholic

[MIKolbe]

 The Immaculate Conception seems a good place to start. I think the doctrine undermines the uniqueness of Christ, as the One Sinless Man, the Spotless Sacrifical Lamb and that it has no possible scriptural basis. 

sounds fair enough...

 

Though I must say to read, "that it has no possible scriptural basis", is a bit disconcerting. I was hoping for a more open mind and discussion. But, in fairness, I really must admit my own closemindedness as there is no possible way the Immaculate Conception isn't true.

 

I am unable to fully answer this 'right now' right now, but maybe someone will chime in. 

 

A few thoughts and questions in the meantime.

 

1) Kecharitomene - someone who is much smarter than me will talk about the perfect past participle of this greek.

2) Luke and Samuel, David and John, the Arc of the Covenant, dancing and leaping.

2) Do you think in the 'mind of the Church' Mary being immaculately conceived means she did not need salvation? Do you think in the 'mind of the Church' this immaculate conception somehow puts her 'on par' with Jesus?

3) Must Mary have sinned because she is human?  Is this part of your argument? 

4) What do you think we believe when we profess the truth of the Immaculate Conception?

 

and welcome to Phatmass.

[Apotheoun]

I can see the reasoning behind the Immaculate Conception theory if a man accepts an Augustinian view of the original sin, but if he does not buy into the Augustinian notion of the effects of the original sin on humanity it follows that he really does not need for the Holy Theotokos to be immaculately conceived.  In fact, according to the Eastern Christian tradition, all men since the time of the ancestral sin possess a mortal existence, but no one is conceived or born sinful, and so no one is guilty of Adam's sin other than Adam himself.  It follows that - again from an Eastern Christian perspective - there is no reason for Mary (or anyone else for that matter) to be protected from some kind of inherited guilt or sin, because no such thing exists or can exist.  I suppose one can say that a man's theological presuppositions determine his approach to the various mysteries of the faith.

[Evangetholic]

Apotheoun your post is most interesting to me, I know little about the East and her traditions--what I do know I've tended to dismiss as needless wordsmithing (finding different ways of saying the exact same thing we in the West believe, but for know apparent reason); this however sounds like a fissure like chasm between Eastern and Western thought, could you develope it further or point me to wear I might read more (online as I'mm quite poor)?

Edited February 8, 2013 by Evangetholic

[Evangetholic]

sounds fair enough...

 

Though I must say to read, "that it has no possible scriptural basis", is a bit disconcerting. I was hoping for a more open mind and discussion. But, in fairness, I really must admit my own closemindedness as there is no possible way the Immaculate Conception isn't true.

 

I am unable to fully answer this 'right now' right now, but maybe someone will chime in. 

 

A few thoughts and questions in the meantime.

 

1) Kecharitomene - someone who is much smarter than me will talk about the perfect past participle of this greek.

2) Luke and Samuel, David and John, the Arc of the Covenant, dancing and leaping.

2) Do you think in the 'mind of the Church' Mary being immaculately conceived means she did not need salvation? Do you think in the 'mind of the Church' this immaculate conception somehow puts her 'on par' with Jesus?

3) Must Mary have sinned because she is human?  Is this part of your argument? 

4) What do you think we believe when we profess the truth of the Immaculate Conception?

 

and welcome to Phatmass.

 

1) I'm aware of the various arguments about kecharitomene and its meaning. I have a fairly high Mariology (for a Protestant) and have no problem applying a grand interpretation of what this word means to the Virgin--I still do not see how the Immaculate Conception flows from it or could be reconciled to the fall, or to the idea that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).

2A) I'm afraid I do not understand these references as relating to the Immaculate Conception. I also do not believe Blessed Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, but I'd imagine it'd be fairly easy to convince me she is such.

2B) Sin is what Christians get saved from, correct? And Jesus's Death and Resurrection are what saves?  Jesus is an acceptable sacrifice to the Father because he is spotless, correct? (these are not rhetorical questions)

3. Yes.

4. I understand Catholic Teaching, I do not believe it. Catholics mean to say she was born without Original Sin and that she committed no personal sin. I see no reason to believe so. I do not think that with this assertion any malice is intended towards the person and uniqueness of Christ--I still think the doctrine, especially in the context of the other Marian doctrines and the Blessed Lady's role in Catholic piety tends to undermine Him just the same.

 

As to your charge about my lack of openness, please carefully discern my non-response to that.

[MIKolbe]

I'm aware of the various arguments about kecharitomene and its meaning

could you fill me in?  I get lost, in all honesty.

 

I am on my way home to a sick wife who really doesn't want to cook dinner, so the 10 year old is cooking tonight.  Should be fun. 

 

prayers, please... be back later

[Evangetholic]

Prayers of course. As for kecharitomene googling it or full of grace will throw wide open the entire breath and depth of Christian thought on the word.

[Evangetholic]

*breadth. typos will be the end of the language one day.

[Apotheoun]

Apotheoun your post is most interesting to me, I know little about the East and her traditions--what I do know I've tended to dismiss as needless wordsmithing (finding different ways of saying the exact same thing we in the West believe, but for know apparent reason); this however sounds like a fissure like chasm between Eastern and Western thought, could you develope it further or point me to wear I might read more (online as I'mm quite poor)?

East and West are very different.  I will post an outline I wrote a few years ago highlighting some of those differences shortly.

[Apotheoun]

Apotheoun . . . this however sounds like a fissure like chasm between Eastern and Western thought, could you develope it further or point me to wear I might read more (online as I'mm quite poor)?

The book The Ancestral Sin by Fr. Romanides is a helpful text on the issue of the original sin and the differences between East and West.  Other texts that are helpful include, but are not limited to the following:

 

Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes and Christ in Eastern Christian Thought both by Fr. John Meyendorff, and Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus by Aristeides Papadakis, which gives perhaps the definitive reasoning behind the Eastern Christian rejection of the filioque theory of the West.

Edited February 9, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

The list below highlights some (but by no means all) of the doctrinal, liturgical, and ecclesiological differences that exist between the Roman Church, on the one hand, and the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, on the other. I have — for the sake of clarity — broken the differences down into three topic sections:

 

 

 

[A] Theological Differences

 

(01) East and West view the Trinity somewhat differently. The West tends to follow St. Thomas Aquinas and the Augustinian tradition, which looks upon the persons (hypostaseis) of the Trinity as relations of opposition within the divine essence (ousia), and which holds that it is the unity of the divine essence (ousia) itself that establishes the fact that there is only one God. While the East holds that the three divine persons (hypostaseis) are really distinct from each other, not because of their relations per se, but because of their distinct origins. Thus, the person (hypostasis) of the Father is distinct from the person (hypostasis) of the Son and the person (hypostasis) of the Spirit, because the Father is the unoriginate cause of divinity, while the Son is eternally generated by the Father, and the Holy Spirit is eternally processed from the Father alone as sole personal (hypostatic) cause of divinity. In other words, the person (hypostasis) of the Father is unbegotten, and the person (hypostasis) of the Son is begotten by the Father, and the person (hypostasis) of the Holy Spirit is spirated by the Father alone through procession. Consequently, in the theology of the East there is only one God because there is only one Father from whom all Godhead originates.

 

(02) In the West, God is held to be pure act (actus purus), and as such there are no real distinctions within the Godhead, because even the three divine persons (hypostases) are only distinct in relation to each other, and not to the divine essence (ousia). Thus — in Western theology — essence (ousia) and person (hypostasis) are identical in God (see Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q. 39, art. 1); while — in Eastern theology — essence (ousia) and person (hypostasis) are really distinct from each other. Moreover, in addition to the real distinction between essence (ousia) and person (hypostasis) in Eastern triadology, there is also a distinction made between essence (ousia) and energy (energeia) within God, with the divine energy being His uncreated glory, which flows out to mankind as a gift of His life and grace.

 

(03) Along with these theological distinctions (i.e., essence, person, and energy) it is held that the divine essence (ousia) itself is completely unknowable, because God, in His essence (ousia), is truly beyond essence (hyperousios) and beyond God (hypertheos). As a consequence, God does not reveal Himself in His essence (ousia); instead, He reveals Himself tri-personally through His uncreated energies (energeiai).

 

(04) From the what has been said in the points above, it becomes clear that the West and the East understand the divine simplicity differently. The West holds that in God there are no real distinctions between, what it calls, His attributes and His essence (ousia), thus all of the divine attributes are identical with the divine essence. While in the East, divine simplicity is understood as the co-inherence or interpenetration (perichoresis) of the divine essence in the multiplicity of God's uncreated energies; and so, each energy is distinct from every other energy (e.g., the divine will is distinct from the divine love, which is distinct from truth, which is distinct from mercy, which is distinct from divine justice, etc.), but the divine essence (ousia) is present as a whole in each one of the distinct energies. This means that the divine essence is indivisibly divided among the personalized (enhypostatic) energies of the three divine persons (hypostaseis). A note of clarification is necessary at this point, because although the uncreated energies correspond in some sense to what the West calls attributes, to identify these two terms (attributes and energies) can lead to theological confusion. In the West the divine attributes are normally held to be distinct only in a noetic sense, that is, they are held to be distinct merely mentally (i.e., in the mind); and that is why the East avoids the use of the term "attributes" when referring to God's uncreated energies, because that would undermine the real distinction that exists between essence (ousia) and energy (energeia) in God, reducing it to an epistemic distinction. Moreover, to reduce the distinction between the divine essence and the uncreated divine energies to something that is merely epistemic leads to major theological problems within the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic tradition in connection with the doctrine of divinization (theosis).

 

(05) As I indicated above, the East makes a further distinction, without a separation, in the Godhead, between the divine essence (ousia) and the uncreated divine energies (energeiai). The divine essence (ousia) is completely incommunicable and transcendent, and as such it is beyond essence (hyperousios); consequently it cannot be known, not now nor even in the eschaton. God is revealed only in His uncreated energies, which flow out from the three divine persons (hypostaseis) as a gift to man (i.e., as grace). Moreover, it is only by man's participation in the divine energies that he can truly possess an experiential knowledge of God, an experience that can be understood in two ways: first, at the level of nature by the sustaining of man's created existence; and second, at the level of the supernatural through the elevation of man's being into the life and glory of the Triune God, which is primarily accomplished through the divine liturgy.

 

(06) The West, at least since the time of the Scholastics, has taught that grace is a created reality, while the East — on the other hand — holds that grace is uncreated. In the East grace — as I indicated above — is divine energy (energeia), which means that grace is God Himself as He exists for us, that is, as He exists outside of His incommunicable essence (ousia). There is no concept of "created grace" in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic tradition.

 

(07) As a consequence of its teaching on grace, the East holds that divinization (theosis) is brought about by an ontological participation in God's uncreated energies, and that through the divine energies man truly participates in the divine life and glory. The uncreated energies are God as He exists outside of His incomprehensible essence (ousia), and so the divine energies are distinct from the divine essence, but without being separated from it.

 

(08) The Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic understanding of predestination also differs from that of the West. The East holds that all men at the level of nature are predestined to redemption through the incarnation of the Son of God. In other words, through the incarnation of the eternal Logos all of human nature has been freed from corruption and the dissolution into non-existence brought about by the ancestral sin of Adam, and has been given the gift of redemption to everlasting existence. But salvation, on the other hand, concerns the integration of the human person (hypostasis) with his natural virtues through the power of God's uncreated energies and the activity of his own created free will. Salvation requires that a man enact his will through grace in doing good and avoiding evil. If a man lives a good life through the power of his will restored by grace, he may enter into the vision of God, but if he fails to integrate his natural virtues into his person (hypostasis) by living a life of sin and vice, he damns himself. Thus, in Eastern theology predestination is the universal redemption of all men and of the whole of creation itself from corruption and non-existence, while salvation involves the integration of man's natural virtues with his personal (enhypostatic) existence through the power of God's uncreated energies and his own free will.

 

 

[B] Liturgical Differences

 

(09) Westerners and Easterners make the sign of the cross somewhat differently, with Easterners making the sign from forehead to the center of the torso, and then from the right shoulder to the left shoulder (or over the heart). The West began making the sign of the cross ending on the right shoulder beginning at some point around the 12th to 13th century.

 

(10) The use of the filioque (which means "and from the Son") in the final section of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed in connection with the procession of the Holy Spirit is not accepted as legitimate by the Eastern Orthodox. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed as it was originally written did not include the filioque, but sadly the West added the filioque to the creed beginning in Spain around the 7th century, with the filioque finally being added at Rome itself at some point during the early part of the 11th century.  [For more information on the Filioque see the Addendum at the bottom of the outline]

 

(11) In the Eastern Churches married men can be ordained to both the diaconate and the priesthood; but, like the Latin Church, only celibate men can be consecrated as bishops.

 

(12) In Byzantine sacramental theology the priest (and not the couple) is the minister of the sacrament of matrimony, and so his blessing is necessary for the validity of the sacrament, which is called "Crowning" in the East. This also means that a deacon cannot officiate at an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic wedding.

 

(13) In Eastern theology the bread and wine of the Eucharist are held to be consecrated into the body and blood of Christ by the whole anaphora, and specifically by the prayer of epiclesis, and not by the "words of institution" as in the West.

 

(14) In the celebration of the Eucharist the Eastern Churches use leavened bread, not unleavened bread, and as Fr. Jungman explained in his magnum opus on the Roman liturgy this difference arose in the 9th century (cf. Jungman, Mass of the Roman Rite, 2:33-34) when the Roman Church broke with the original practice of using leavened bread.

 

(15) The Eastern Churches, unlike the Latin Church and the Protestant Churches, use the Greek translation of the Old Testament commonly referred to as the Septuagint (LXX), and because of this difference the Easter Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches have a somewhat larger canon of scripture than the Latin Church (e.g., Eastern Churches — Orthodox and Catholic — chant the "Prayer of Manasseh" as scripture during Great Compline).

 

(16) In the Eastern Churches — both Orthodox and Catholic — icons are always two dimensional images written according to specific aesthetic rules often referred to as "reverse perspective," and so one will rarely if ever see statuary (or even naturalistic paintings) in an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic Church (except those that have perhaps suffered a degree of Latinization). 

 

(17) Icons are also believed to contain divine energy, which means that they are a mystery (i.e., a sacrament) that bestows grace upon those who venerate them. Icons, because they are filled with energy, manifest the person or event depicted in them, and are consequently not merely signs pointing to a reality that is absent, but render present the personal reality of the saint or event imaged.

 

(18) How an icon is produced (i.e., written) is regulated in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic tradition, because an icon is believed to be a living expression of the Orthodox faith. In other words, an icon is not a piece of art, and the iconographer is not an artist in the modern sense of that word, because he is not trying to express his own ideas, nor is he trying to display his own natural talents. The iconographer is first and foremost creating a liturgical prayer, a window into heaven, and in order to do that he must live the Orthodox faith through prayer and fasting, while following the norms established by the Church's iconographic Tradition. Moreover, in writing an icon the iconographer is creating a specific memory (anamnesis) of an event or person within the life of the Church, a memory (anamnesis) that is identical to the memory (anamnesis) of the whole Church. Thus, an icon is a theophany, i.e., it is a manifestation of God through an eruption of divine energy into the world, which means that an icon really is what it signifies; and so, to touch an icon is to touch the personal reality of the mystery itself. For more information on icons I would recommend getting a copy of the book: The Meaning of Icons, by Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky. Other helpful texts include Fr. Kucharek's book The Byzantine-Slav Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and Leonid Ouspensky's two volume work entitled Theology of the Icon.

 

(19) In the Eastern Churches the sacraments of initiation are not separated; and so, babies are baptized, chrismated with holy myron (confirmed), and receive first communion all during the same ritual service.

 

(20) The Eastern Churches reject the idea that there are only seven holy mysteries (sacraments). 

 

(21) The human voice, according to the tradition of the Eastern Churches, is the only musical instrument allowed during liturgical celebrations, for as St. John Chrysostom wrote:  "David formerly sang songs, also today we sing hymns. He had a lyre with lifeless strings, the Church has a lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre with a different tone indeed but much more in accordance with piety. Here there is no need for the cithara, or for stretched strings, or for the plectrum, or for art, or for any instrument; but, if you like, you may yourself become a cithara, mortifying the members of the flesh and making a full harmony of mind and body. For when the flesh no longer lusts against the Spirit, but has submitted to its orders and has been led at length into the best and most admirable path, then will you create a spiritual melody."  [Exposition on Psalms, no. 41]

 

 

[C] Ecclesiological Differences

 

(22) The greatest ecclesiological difference of course concerns the place of the Bishop of Rome within the Church. The Eastern Orthodox, and non-Latinized Eastern Catholics, reject any kind of primacy that places it in isolation from the synodal structure of the Church (i.e., from the universal episcopate). In this sense, primacy and synodality are held to be reciprocal (see Canon 34 of the Apostolic Constitutions).

 

and 

 

(23) A Byzantine ecclesiology of communion, which sees each local Church as the full realization of the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church through the celebration of the liturgy and the profession of the Orthodox faith, is incompatible with the late medieval Roman universalist ecclesiology promoted by the Scholastics, which divides the Church into pieces that are only later juridically united through a concept of hierarchical subservience to the bishop of Rome.

 

 

 

 

Addendum on the Filioque

 

Eastern Triadology, unlike the Scholastic philosophical theology of the West, is focused first and foremost upon the monarchy of the Father, Who is seen as the sole principle (arche), source (pege), and cause (aitia) of divinity. Now, it follows from the doctrine of the monarchy of the Father that both the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their subsistence solely from Him, i.e., that He is their sole source and origin; and so, they are — as a consequence — one in essence (homoousios) with Him. Moreover, it is important to remember that the word homoousios itself, which was used by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in order to describe the eternal communion of nature that exists between the Father and the Son, is a term that indicates a relation of dependence. In other words, the use of the term homoousios by the Church Fathers involves recognition of the fact that the Son receives His existence as person (hypostasis) from God the Father alone by generation (gennatos), and that He is dependent upon the Father for His co-essential nature. That being said, it follows that the Son comes forth from the Father’s person (hypostasis), and not from the divine essence (ousia), which is always absolutely common to the three divine persons. The same also holds with the hypostatic procession (ekporeusis) of origin of the Holy Spirit, because He also receives His existence from the Father alone, i.e., from the Father’s person (hypostasis), and not from the divine essence (ousia), which — as I already indicated — is absolutely common to the three divine persons [see St. Gregory Palamas, "Logos Apodeiktikos," I, 6]. Thus, it is from the Father Himself personally that the other two persons of the Holy Trinity derive their eternal subsistence and their co-essential nature.  

 

Now, with the foregoing information in mind, it is clear that the Eastern Churches (both Orthodox and Catholic) must reject any theological system or theory that tries to elevate the Son to a co-principle of origin in connection with the existential procession (ekporeusis) of the Holy Spirit as person (hypostasis), because within Byzantine Triadology a theological proposition of that kind entails either the sin of ditheism, which involves positing the false idea that there are two principles or causes of divinity (i.e., the Father and the Son); or the heresy of Sabellian Modalism, which involves proposing the false notion that the Holy Spirit as person (hypostasis) proceeds from Father and the Son "as from one principle," thus causing an unintentional blending of the persons of the Father and the Son by giving the Son a personal characteristic (i.e., the power to spirate the Holy Spirit as person) that is proper only to the Father.

[Evangetholic]

Brother I'm going to give this the prayerful read it deserves.