Catholics, what exactly do you believe about Mary?

[Vicomte13]

Even in this thread there's a lack of consistency.

If you separate any man out, make it so that he cannot escape the discussion, and pin him down on doctrine by doctrine, you will find that no two people on earth believe exactly the same thing. Everybody sees things in his or her own way.

 

[Vicomte13]

This explanation from Gabriel proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that his appellation in question here does not imply sinlessness,

To you. Not to me. The angel didn't talk to Mary in Greek. Luke wrote down what Mary recounted to him in Greek.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

If you separate any man out, make it so that he cannot escape the discussion, and pin him down on doctrine by doctrine, you will find that no two people on earth believe exactly the same thing. Everybody sees things in his or her own way.

when it comes to the base doctrine for a faith though... whether that's pray to Mary, trinity, oneness, salvation, areas like that a consistency should be present though. Sure when it comes to certian things like what to wear, certian small aspects of doctrine there should be differences. But if a church doesn't share a common core view of a essential belief that's gotta be fixed. The first church according to acts believed in the same thing for example. But sure when it comes to things like what to wear, what happens after death, stuff like that that's ok because that's not the base. But the base should be consistent among members in a body

 

[Vicomte13]

To you. Not to me. The angel didn't talk to Mary in Greek. Luke wrote down what Mary recounted to him in Greek.

The Immaculate Conception is not teased out of this passage. It is taken straight from the Protoevangelium of James (a book not in the Bible), and was confirmed explicitly by Mary herself at Lourdes in the early 1800s, speaking to St. Bernadette.

 

[Vicomte13]

The first church according to acts believed in the same thing. They all believed in Repetence, baptism, Holy Spirit

Obviously it didn't. There are disputes, arguments and differences all over the Acts and Paul's letters. And Jesus from the throne room of heaven berates 6 of the 7 churches for the things they do.

Religion is, and always has been, a very personal thing. This is because if it does not push the specific buttons of an individual s/he will ignore the religion and not follow it (though in a religiously oppressive culture everybody pays lip service out of a desire for self-preservation).

 

[kepha31]

That's true, but it's a shame. When we go to be with Jesus we don't stop loving those on earth. We are still united in Christ.

We know that the saints in heaven can carry our prayers to God:

Rev. 5:8
And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people.

Just to clarify, the saints in heaven can carry our prayers to God BY THE GRACE OF CHRIST, and saints in heaven have no power to answer the prayers, THAT IS GOD'S DOING, if He chooses. When we say a prayer has been answered, we don't need to get into this long explanation of the dynamics.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

Obviously it didn't. There are disputes, arguments and differences all over the Acts and Paul's letters. And Jesus from the throne room of heaven berates 6 of the 7 churches for the things they do.

Religion is, and always has been, a very personal thing. This is because if it does not push the specific buttons of an individual s/he will ignore the religion and not follow it (though in a religiously oppressive culture everybody pays lip service out of a desire for self-preservation).

There weren't differences there were simply things that had to be taught to different churches that had different problems. Corinthians for example had a problem with order but the church in Colossians had a problem with Greek influence. And religion sure is personal but it's not met to be an individual endevour... the Bible calls christians the body of Christ with Christ as the head.

 

[Thursday]

True I agree when someone dies (who is saved) they are united with Christ but I'm just not sure how that merits praying to my dead cousin in Christ or whatever if Jesus is omnipresent and I can just pray to him. I get what you're saying though

We read in James that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective. We believe that those in heaven, having been fully sanctified, are completely righteous and that their prayers are powerful and effective. That is why we ask them to pray for us. Also, they are now outside of time and can focus on prayer.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

We read in James that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective. We believe that those in heaven, having been fully sanctified, are completely righteous and that their prayers are powerful and effective. That is why we ask them to pray for us. Also, they are now outside of time and can focus on prayer.

Oh ok I see what you're saying now I see we have different views though on how the after life works but that's alright . And I agree the prayers of the righteousness aviliath much

 

[Vicomte13]

There weren't differences there were simply things that had to be taught to different churches that had different problems. Corinthians for example had a problem with order but the church in Colossians had a problem with Greek influence. And religion sure is personal but it's not met to be an individual endevour... the Bible calls christians the body of Christ with Christ as the head.

In the Bible Jesus makes Peter the head of the Apostles, and sends the Holy Spirit into the Church to guide the Church through the ages. The further developments in the Church, which bring more discipline across separate local churches to bring them in line with the whole - to address the problems that Jesus points out in the revelation that you have discussed about - these improvements upon the early structure are the acts of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, God causing and preserving certain miracles provided visible, tangible proof for the generations and ages of the right answers to vexed but important questions.

When Mary said to Bernadette Soubirous, the girl who saw her at Lourdes, "I am the immaculate conception", that was the definitive word on the subject. God answered that question by sending Mary. God demonstrated the truth of the apparition by unleashing an ongoing stream of healing miracles whose only precedent is what Jesus himself did, and God demonstrated the truthfulness of St. Bernadette by causing her body to have been, and continue to be, incorrupt and undecayed despite being dead for about 140 years.

That's how we know for sure that Mary WAS, in fact, the Immaculate Conception. We have the protoevangelium of James describing how that happened. We have the Holy Spirit reposing in the Church protecting the Church from error on such matters, and we have God dispatching Mary herself to confirm it, and providing enduring miracles to prove that all of this is real to any who will look.

Against all of that, there is what? The complaint that it's not in the Bible? That complaint is predicated on the doctrine that the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God, which is made up and not true.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

In the Bible Jesus makes Peter the head of the Apostles, and sends the Holy Spirit into the Church to guide the Church through the ages. The further developments in the Church, which bring more discipline across separate local churches to bring them in line with the whole - to address the problems that Jesus points out in the revelation that you have discussed about - these improvements upon the early structure are the acts of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, God causing and preserving certain miracles provided visible, tangible proof for the generations and ages of the right answers to vexed but important questions.

When Mary said to Bernadette Soubirous, the girl who saw her at Lourdes, "I am the immaculate conception", that was the definitive word on the subject. God answered that question by sending Mary. God demonstrated the truth of the apparition by unleashing an ongoing stream of healing miracles whose only precedent is what Jesus himself did, and God demonstrated the truthfulness of St. Bernadette by causing her body to have been, and continue to be, incorrupt and undecayed despite being dead for about 140 years.

That's how we know for sure that Mary WAS, in fact, the Immaculate Conception. We have the protoevangelium of James describing how that happened. We have the Holy Spirit reposing in the Church protecting the Church from error on such matters, and we have God dispatching Mary herself to confirm it, and providing enduring miracles to prove that all of this is real to any who will look.

Against all of that, there is what? The complaint that it's not in the Bible? That complaint is predicated on the doctrine that the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God, which is made up and not true.

Im going to be honest with you I lost you after the first paragraph. Didn't quiet understand what you said after that. I have an idea of what was said but I'm not sure tbh

 

[Vicomte13]

Im going to be honest with you I lost you after the first paragraph. Didn't quiet understand what you said after that. I have an idea of what was said but I'm not sure tbh

Should I try again, or shall we just call it a day?

 

[Albion]

In the Bible Jesus makes Peter the head of the Apostles

I can find nowhere in Scripture where Jesus declares Peter the head of the Apostles. And even we were to interpret some passages to mean that, there absolutely is nothing from Jesus saying that any successor bishops of Rome inherit the position.

When Mary said to Bernadette Soubirous, the girl who saw her at Lourdes, "I am the immaculate conception", that was the definitive word on the subject.

And we know that Mary did this...how?

Against all of that, there is what?

a lack of evidence that any of it actually happened.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

Should I try again, or shall we just call it a day?

Try one more time wording it in a different way maybe and explaining who the lady I believe you mentioned before Mary is the one who's name starts with a B, if I don't understand it after that call it a day. Also I'm not sure what makes you think peter was made head of the apostles though

 

[DamianWarS]

Mother of God is very easy:
-Jesus was God before He was born
-Jesus was God after He was born
Therefore: Jesus was God during His birth, and thus, Mary gave birth to God!

The conditions of being a mother are a biological role and/or a nurturing role. Mary was both. She contributed to the biological forming and birth of Jesus and she contributed to the nurturing of Jesus so she was unequivocally the mother of Jesus.

Mary however did not have the capacity to form the divine or nurture the divine or birth the divine as the divine pre-existed creation. Mary's reach as a mother extended only as far as her created state allowed and thus the divine could not have been influenced by Mary. So Mary does not qualify as the mother of God because she does not meet the criteria of a mother in relation to the divine.

 

[Vicomte13]

I can find nowhere in Scripture where Jesus declares Peter the head of the Apostles. And even we were to interpret some passages to mean that, there absolutely is nothing from Jesus saying that any successor bishops of Rome inherit the position.


And we know that Mary did this...how?


a lack of evidence that any of it actually happened.

No matter what is presented, you will bat it down. The OP asked what Catholics believed. Several Catholics and I answered that.

The questions then turned into "Why?" and "How?" We've answered that.

Now the questions are becoming statements - how we're wrong, there's no proof, etc. There is proof - even that has been given. Lourdes is the place to start.

You're not going to accept any of it, so why bother? This wasn't about Catholics trying to persuade Protestants to believe anything. It was about explaining what we believe and why.

Would you like to start a new thread, entitled: "Catholicism is wrong about all of its major doctrines where they depart from Anglicanism"? Or, I suppose, we could have that debate here.

I will start not with the Bible, but with the most recent miracles and revelations, and the proof that they are revelations (the veridical nature of the miracles). Where you have incredible healings like Christ did, and you have undecayed bodies, you have signs of the divine, which link, going backwards, with previous similar miraculous and preserved signs of the divine, these link back further to more such signs, and they all link back to a particular set of doctrines and beliefs among the many possible about the early Church.

By emphasizing this text and de-emphasizing that text, men can create all sorts of Christianities. God indicated the real one all along by miracles, which he left in permanent form to demonstrate the point for all ages. The first one of these is the Shroud of Turin. The most recent are the medical records of the Lourdes healings.

The healings are real, and are done at a place where Mary appeared, called herself the Immaculate Conception, and after which the girl who saw her there, when she died, wasn't embalmed and did not decay - she can still be looked at today, unrotted.

The nature of the healings include the healings of the blind and paralytics. What power did this, God or Satan?

Can Satan cast out Satan?

Then God. God, at a place identified by an apparition of Mary who called herself the Immaculate Conception. THAT is why you know that the Immaculate Conception is, of all of the different possibilities, the correct answer: it has been revealed by God, by all of the totality of things at Lourdes.

And it just so happens that the totality of things at Lourdes are the sort of things that distinguish the Catholic Church from all of the other Churches - Immaculate Conception of Mary, specific saints doing things in real times that were not agreed upon by ancient Councils. God did it in the here and now, in the Catholic Church. He didn't do it like this anywhere else. This is how Catholics know that ours is the One True Church, and why we are unpersuadable by arguments that don't take things like Lourdes, and Fatima, and Lanciano, and the Incorrupt bodies of Saints into account. These things happened and are real, and we SEE them.

To talk to us, you have to address what WE are looking at, not just flog our old Church book, which is good, but whose narrative stops in the First Century and is thus incomplete.

To simply deny Lourdes is to be a buffoon: these healings are in the 20th Century of people on medical insurance, with medical records. They're very real. To dismiss them as coincidence does not work - there's nowhere else - including the combined total of all of the hospitals in the world, which have a lot more sick people passing through them than Lourdes - where miracles like those happen at all, let alone with that sort of frequency.

What one is left with, then, is committing the unpardonable sin and ascribing the works of the Holy Spirit to Satan.

So instead, all of the physical proofs are just IGNORED. Which means that the Catholic Church and Catholic experience is IGNORED. Which is why Catholics and others have such difficulty talking to each other. We live in a church of miracles. Whatever ignores the miracles is obviously not dealing with the facts or the truth, so what is there to say? Nothing useful.

 

[Vicomte13]

So Mary does not qualify as the mother of God because she does not meet the criteria of a mother in relation to the divine.

Your criteria.

 

[AlexDTX]

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception hinges on Luke 1:28. According to 99.9% of Protestants, grace is what makes you holy and righteousness. When an angel from God declares Mary "Full of Grace", there is no room for sin, not even the propensity for sin. So the argument for the IC is based on the Protestant premise for "grace".

Grace does not make us holy. The finished work of the perfect man who died for us to pay for our sins, and his resurrection, makes us holy, of which we receive by faith through God's grace.

We are all said to have this grace in Ephesians 1:6 expressed by exactly the same verb as is used in Luke 1:28. That doesn't mean, of course, that we never sin!

Amen! Thank you for your lengthy explanation of the Greek. It was hard to follow, but I made my best effort to follow your points.

If you separate any man out, make it so that he cannot escape the discussion, and pin him down on doctrine by doctrine, you will find that no two people on earth believe exactly the same thing. Everybody sees things in his or her own way.

Well said. Even in the Protestant stripe of Christianity, every individual has their own understanding. Declarations of belief by "officials" (that is, a small group of people recognized as leaders of that group) may state what an organization is supposed to accept, nonetheless, every individual will still be fully persuaded in their own minds.

To you. Not to me. The angel didn't talk to Mary in Greek. Luke wrote down what Mary recounted to him in Greek.

Good point. But on the other hand, Jewish believers in Christ have also authored their Jewish interpretation of what they assume the Aramaic and Hebrew may have been (since there are no extant copies). Seems that, then, would be a good resource for Catholic faith as well.

In the Bible Jesus makes Peter the head of the Apostles, and sends the Holy Spirit into the Church to guide the Church through the ages.

Of course, that is subject to interpretation. Jesus said that he was a rock, Petra, but makes no indication that he was the Head of the Church, since it is clear throughout the rest of the New Testament that Christ is the only Head of the Church. We see later, too, that Peter's ministry was to Jewish believers and Paul's was to Gentiles. So, if he is a "head" he is the head of Messianic believers.

I have really enjoyed reading what Catholics have to say about their view of Mary and regret that it is turning into an argument against Catholics. There are Christians in a multitude of groups, and their are unregenerates in those same groups. I left another thread that was bashing Andy Stanley of Protestant ilk, who was being called an apostate by others because of his view on homosexuals. Apostates are not apostate because of doctrine, they are apostate because they stop believing that Jesus is Lord, or God in the flesh.

I have known many Catholics who have the new birth. They are my brothers and sisters in Christ. What doctrine we believe outside the deity, death and resurrection of Christ who saves us from our sins through regeneration, simply determines the quality of our relationship with God and our effectiveness as believers, both in our discipleship and evangelism.

 

[Albion]

No matter what is presented, you will bat it down. The OP asked what Catholics believed. Several Catholics and I answered that.

It's true that you answered what Catholics believe. You also insisted that there is no basis for anyone to disbelieve them. It was all of that which I was answering to.

Now the questions are becoming statements - how we're wrong, there's no proof, etc. There is proof - even that has been given. Lourdes is the place to start.

As I was saying...

You're not going to accept any of it, so why bother?

That's what people always say when they have no evidence to support their own claims. Most don't go so far as to call anyone who disagrees a "buffoon," as you did, however. Present some evidence from either Scripture or history and see how I and others respond.

Would you like to start a new thread, entitled: "Catholicism is wrong about all of its major doctrines where they depart from Anglicanism"? Or, I suppose, we could have that debate here.

If that means you're hoping to change the subject, I understand.

 

[tadoflamb]

I guess this might be a good time to ask exactly what sola scripturists believe about Mary.