Ecce Verbum
Why should we call Mary the “mother of God” instead of just the “mother of Jesus”? Dr. Timothy Pawl In the history of the church, there have been some claims that have been theological lightning rods. They took on great importance as tools for demarcating…
If we call Mary the “mother of God”, do we not make her greater than God or at least at the same level as God?
Dr. Timothy Pawl
Mary is not greater than God or on the same level as God in any theologically pernicious way, even if we do call her the Mother of God. We must remember that when thinking of Christ, we can consider him with respect to his divinity, but we can also consider him with respect to his humanity. With respect to his divinity, no created thing is greater than him or at the same level as him. None could be.
With respect to his humanity, Mary and Jesus were at the same level in some senses. They were both truly human in a full and complete sense. In some ways, too, she was greater than him – again, with respect to his humanity. As a human son (but not a merely human son) of a human mother, he owed her obedience according to the Law. (For Aquinas’s take on Christ’s submission to the Law, see here.) This should not surprise us, as scripture itself notes Christ’s submission to his parents in Luke 2:51.
We might say that, as her son, she was above him in authority; as her God, he was above her in authority. If we measure greatness all things considered, the whole and entire Christ measured against the whole and entire Mary, we get the answer we expect: Christ is God, and God is greater than Mary in every respect. We should expect that there would be something difficult to wrap our heads around in Jesus’ relationship to Mary. After all, how could a creature be the mother of the Creator? As the 11th century Marian hymn, Alma Redemptoris Mater puts it, “to the wonderment of nature, she bore her creator.” But the fact that this really happened is no more shocking or awe-inspiring than the fact that God became man, that God entered into the ordinary human way of being in the world.
We see God’s faithfulness to his covenant. This might not be us learning a new thing, but it counts as yet another reason to affirm something we already knew about God. We learn God’s willingness to enter into the quagmire we’ve created for ourselves in being born to a woman, like all of us, and being born to a woman of low standing. (For Aquinas’s take on the value of being born to an espoused virgin, see here; for his take on being born into poverty, see here.) Were he to have simply appeared somewhere, full-formed, one might question his true humanity. Such a birth safeguards his lineage.
We can learn from Mary about saying yes with joy to what God asks of us, and about waiting patiently to see how God will work out His redemptive purposes in our lives and in the world around us. It’s of critical importance that when the angel Gabriel came to Mary, Mary gave God her permission, her fiat, to cooperate with God’s plan for salvation. She used her freedom to offer all she had to be part of God’s work of bringing Christ into the world. There’s a venerable tradition of considering Mary the New Eve, acknowledging the unique way she is able to participate in God’s plan to unravel the harm brought about in the Garden. We see in that tradition both the affirmation of Mary’s freedom and dignity, and her exemplarity in giving her all to God.
Twentieth century British author, Caryll Houselander, writes beautifully of Jesus and Mary while Mary was waiting to give birth, “By his own will, Christ was dependent on Mary during Advent: he was absolutely helpless; he could go nowhere but where she chose to take him; he could not speak; her breathing was his breath; his heart beat in the beating of her heart…. In the seasons of our Advent – waking, working, eating, sleeping, being – each breath is a breathing of Christ into the world.” (Houselander, Reed of God) We, like Mary, are called to bring Christ into the corners of the world we inhabit, and to do so with joy and patience.
source
Aquinas 101
ST IIIa Q. 40 — Aquinas 101
#mary
Dr. Timothy Pawl
Mary is not greater than God or on the same level as God in any theologically pernicious way, even if we do call her the Mother of God. We must remember that when thinking of Christ, we can consider him with respect to his divinity, but we can also consider him with respect to his humanity. With respect to his divinity, no created thing is greater than him or at the same level as him. None could be.
With respect to his humanity, Mary and Jesus were at the same level in some senses. They were both truly human in a full and complete sense. In some ways, too, she was greater than him – again, with respect to his humanity. As a human son (but not a merely human son) of a human mother, he owed her obedience according to the Law. (For Aquinas’s take on Christ’s submission to the Law, see here.) This should not surprise us, as scripture itself notes Christ’s submission to his parents in Luke 2:51.
We might say that, as her son, she was above him in authority; as her God, he was above her in authority. If we measure greatness all things considered, the whole and entire Christ measured against the whole and entire Mary, we get the answer we expect: Christ is God, and God is greater than Mary in every respect. We should expect that there would be something difficult to wrap our heads around in Jesus’ relationship to Mary. After all, how could a creature be the mother of the Creator? As the 11th century Marian hymn, Alma Redemptoris Mater puts it, “to the wonderment of nature, she bore her creator.” But the fact that this really happened is no more shocking or awe-inspiring than the fact that God became man, that God entered into the ordinary human way of being in the world.
We see God’s faithfulness to his covenant. This might not be us learning a new thing, but it counts as yet another reason to affirm something we already knew about God. We learn God’s willingness to enter into the quagmire we’ve created for ourselves in being born to a woman, like all of us, and being born to a woman of low standing. (For Aquinas’s take on the value of being born to an espoused virgin, see here; for his take on being born into poverty, see here.) Were he to have simply appeared somewhere, full-formed, one might question his true humanity. Such a birth safeguards his lineage.
We can learn from Mary about saying yes with joy to what God asks of us, and about waiting patiently to see how God will work out His redemptive purposes in our lives and in the world around us. It’s of critical importance that when the angel Gabriel came to Mary, Mary gave God her permission, her fiat, to cooperate with God’s plan for salvation. She used her freedom to offer all she had to be part of God’s work of bringing Christ into the world. There’s a venerable tradition of considering Mary the New Eve, acknowledging the unique way she is able to participate in God’s plan to unravel the harm brought about in the Garden. We see in that tradition both the affirmation of Mary’s freedom and dignity, and her exemplarity in giving her all to God.
Twentieth century British author, Caryll Houselander, writes beautifully of Jesus and Mary while Mary was waiting to give birth, “By his own will, Christ was dependent on Mary during Advent: he was absolutely helpless; he could go nowhere but where she chose to take him; he could not speak; her breathing was his breath; his heart beat in the beating of her heart…. In the seasons of our Advent – waking, working, eating, sleeping, being – each breath is a breathing of Christ into the world.” (Houselander, Reed of God) We, like Mary, are called to bring Christ into the corners of the world we inhabit, and to do so with joy and patience.
source
Aquinas 101
ST IIIa Q. 40 — Aquinas 101
#mary
cas.stthomas.edu
Timothy Pawl | Philosophy
Timothy Pawl is a Professor in Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas
Ecce Verbum
Mary’s Purity and Sinlessness 4. •Gregory of Tours “The course of this life having been completed by blessed Mary, when now she would be called from the world, all the apostles came together from their various regions to her house. And when they had heard…
Mary's perpetual virginity in the Church Fathers
The primary purpose of this article will be to show that the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is consistently and widely taught by the Church Fathers. It has always been taught that Mary was always a Virgin and it has always taught with zeal, as shall become evident. I shall begin first by laying out some testimony from Holy Scripture about the superiority of virginity itself, as this is often questioned by Protestants I myself have come across who cannot understand why it would matter for Mary to be a virgin. I shall follow this up with a citation from St Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, where he defends the idea that virginity is indeed a virtue. Then we shall come to the main body of the article, wherein I shall provide abundant quotations from the Fathers of the Church affirming the divinely revealed truth that the Virgin Mary is an Ever-Virgin.
https://recta-sapere.blogspot.com/search/label/Mariology?m=0
#mary
The primary purpose of this article will be to show that the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is consistently and widely taught by the Church Fathers. It has always been taught that Mary was always a Virgin and it has always taught with zeal, as shall become evident. I shall begin first by laying out some testimony from Holy Scripture about the superiority of virginity itself, as this is often questioned by Protestants I myself have come across who cannot understand why it would matter for Mary to be a virgin. I shall follow this up with a citation from St Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, where he defends the idea that virginity is indeed a virtue. Then we shall come to the main body of the article, wherein I shall provide abundant quotations from the Fathers of the Church affirming the divinely revealed truth that the Virgin Mary is an Ever-Virgin.
https://recta-sapere.blogspot.com/search/label/Mariology?m=0
#mary
Blogspot
Recta Sapere
Neo-Scholastic Philosophy and Theology
Ecce Verbum
Dogmatic Letter of St. Sophronius on the Incarnation (After the Synod of Jerusalem in 634, St. Sophronius, the patriarch of the city, sent a long letter in the form of a profession of faith to Sergius, the patriarch of Constantinople. The authority of this…
John Duns Scotus and his defense of the Immaculate Conception
Noel Muscat OFM
Our aim is that of providing a simple presentation of the main arguments which the Subtle Doctor proposes as a defence of this unique privilege of the Virgin Mary.
Blessed John Duns Scotus (1265/66 – 8th November 1308), besides being known as the «Subtle Doctor», is also referred to as the «Marian Doctor». It was he who presented a systematic theology of the Marian privilege of the Immaculate Conception, which the Catholic Church officially proclaimed as a Dogma of Faith in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX.
Scotus builds a theology centred upon Christ, who is eternally predestined by God the Father to assume human nature in the Incarnation. According to the Subtle Doctor the Incarnation was not primarily intended to be the condition for the redemption of humanity from sin. In God’s provident plan, the Incarnation of the Word in the person of Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, the apex of the act of creation by God the Father. All creation has been fashioned according to the image of the Incarnate Word, and is the result of a pure and free act of love on the part of God. Creation, in this way, enters in a mysterious but real way into a loving relationship with God as a Trinity of Persons. Each and every creature, being complete in itself and unique in its essence, is a model of God the Son, who became Incarnate in order to glorify His Father for the beauty of creation.
It is true that, in the history redemption, the Incarnation was then orientated toward the salvation of humankind from sin, but this aspect, important though it may be, could not be the only reason for the Incarnation. Otherwise God would not be seen as the personification of the primacy of the free will, expressed in love which overflows from Him onto His creatures.
It is in this Christological view of the world and of redemption that Scotus speaks about the Virgin Mary as Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. She becomes the embodiment of all perfection in creation, freed from sin and from its effects through the saving power of Jesus Christ, the universal Mediator between God and humankind.
It was fitting that God would choose a Mother for His Son, who would be totally free form any stain of original and actual sin, in order to become a channel of grace to us all.
full article:
http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/marian/scotus&immac.htm
more on the topic:
The Immaculate Conception and Mary's Spiritual Maternity
Pope Benedict XVI, Scotus, the Incarnation
#mary
Noel Muscat OFM
Our aim is that of providing a simple presentation of the main arguments which the Subtle Doctor proposes as a defence of this unique privilege of the Virgin Mary.
Blessed John Duns Scotus (1265/66 – 8th November 1308), besides being known as the «Subtle Doctor», is also referred to as the «Marian Doctor». It was he who presented a systematic theology of the Marian privilege of the Immaculate Conception, which the Catholic Church officially proclaimed as a Dogma of Faith in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX.
Scotus builds a theology centred upon Christ, who is eternally predestined by God the Father to assume human nature in the Incarnation. According to the Subtle Doctor the Incarnation was not primarily intended to be the condition for the redemption of humanity from sin. In God’s provident plan, the Incarnation of the Word in the person of Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, the apex of the act of creation by God the Father. All creation has been fashioned according to the image of the Incarnate Word, and is the result of a pure and free act of love on the part of God. Creation, in this way, enters in a mysterious but real way into a loving relationship with God as a Trinity of Persons. Each and every creature, being complete in itself and unique in its essence, is a model of God the Son, who became Incarnate in order to glorify His Father for the beauty of creation.
It is true that, in the history redemption, the Incarnation was then orientated toward the salvation of humankind from sin, but this aspect, important though it may be, could not be the only reason for the Incarnation. Otherwise God would not be seen as the personification of the primacy of the free will, expressed in love which overflows from Him onto His creatures.
It is in this Christological view of the world and of redemption that Scotus speaks about the Virgin Mary as Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. She becomes the embodiment of all perfection in creation, freed from sin and from its effects through the saving power of Jesus Christ, the universal Mediator between God and humankind.
It was fitting that God would choose a Mother for His Son, who would be totally free form any stain of original and actual sin, in order to become a channel of grace to us all.
full article:
http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/marian/scotus&immac.htm
more on the topic:
The Immaculate Conception and Mary's Spiritual Maternity
Pope Benedict XVI, Scotus, the Incarnation
#mary
Ecce Verbum
Mary's perpetual virginity in the Church Fathers The primary purpose of this article will be to show that the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is consistently and widely taught by the Church Fathers. It has always been taught…
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Ecce Verbum
John Duns Scotus and his defense of the Immaculate Conception Noel Muscat OFM Our aim is that of providing a simple presentation of the main arguments which the Subtle Doctor proposes as a defence of this unique privilege of the Virgin Mary. Blessed John…
Immaculate_Conception_Why_Thomas_Aquinas.pdf
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The Immaculate Conception
Why Tomas Aquinas denied, while John Found Scotus, Gregory Palamas and Mark Eugenicus professed the absolute immaculate existence of Mary
Rev. Christiaan W. Kappes
more:
🔗a video in which it is argued that St Thomas did not deny the immaculate conception
#mary
Why Tomas Aquinas denied, while John Found Scotus, Gregory Palamas and Mark Eugenicus professed the absolute immaculate existence of Mary
Rev. Christiaan W. Kappes
more:
🔗a video in which it is argued that St Thomas did not deny the immaculate conception
#mary
Ecce Verbum
Why should we call Mary the “mother of God” instead of just the “mother of Jesus”? Dr. Timothy Pawl In the history of the church, there have been some claims that have been theological lightning rods. They took on great importance as tools for demarcating…
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