Catholics, what exactly do you believe about Mary?

[Thursday]

Your analogy doesn't make sense because Mary is a human while the Holy Spirit and Jesus is another thing altogether. And god prior to his manifestation in flesh was just 100% divine so calling her mother of god wouldn't fit. Mother of Jesus is better suited since Jesus=100% flesh 100% divine and who came out of her womb was 100% flesh and 100% divine not just 100% divine. You have to include both you can't exclude the human part.

I think you are being difficult. Jesus is God. Mary is his Mother.

This title was given to Mary to combat those denying the divinity of Christ.

If you accept the divinity of Christ then you should have no problem calling Mary the Mother of God.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

I think you are being difficult. Jesus is God. Mary is his Mother.

This title was given to Mary to combat those denying the divinity of Christ.

Do you accept the divinity of Christ?

Nah I'm just being honest. And Jesus isn't just a title it's a name don't just dismiss it like that it's disrespectful. And I'll let you read the statement you quoted again... because it makes it clear whether I believe in divinity or not

 

[Thursday]

Nah I'm just being honest. And Jesus isn't just a title it's a name don't just dismiss it like that it's disrespectful. And I'll let you read the statement you quoted again... because it makes it clear whether I believe in divinity or not

I already corrected it! Sorry.

I still think you are letting your anti Catholic sentiments block common sense.

Is Jesus God? Who is the Mother of Jesus?

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

I already corrected it! Sorry.

I still think you are letting your anti Catholic sentiments block common sense.

Is Jesus God? Who is the Mother of Jesus?

Jesus is god in flesh which adds a 100% human element that god in the OT didn't have so saying mother of god isn't the same thing. I'm going to stand by that she's the mother of Jesus

 

[Thursday]

Jesus is god in flesh which adds a 100% human element that god in the OT didn't have so saying mother of god isn't the same thing. I'm going to stand by that she's the mother of Jesus

The point of calling Mary Mother of God is to support the divinity of her son, Jesus.

The Arians denied the divinity of Christ, and therefore they rejected this title.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

The point of calling Mary Mother of God is to support the divinity of her son, Jesus.

The Arians denied the divinity of Christ, and therefore they rejected this title.

I get your point now however You can support this better and with a stronger emphasis though by simply calling Jesus god. It's more direct

 

[Vicomte13]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's why I asked: what exactly are we talking about here?

The word "god" is a Norse word that means "good". The Old Norse/English word for a mighty being such as Odin, Zeus, Pallas Athena, Thor, etc., was not "god", it was "ace".

Jesus and his Father - the Christian Trinity - were viewed by the Old Norse, as they converted, not simply as "aces" ("aesir" in the original spelling), but as the GOOD ace, hence "god" - "good" - the GOOD.

With English, given this etymology, it's a tricky business, because "god" means "good", and there is only one Good, according to Jesus, and that is Theos - the Deity.

Now, in Greek, as in Hebrew, Latin and French for that matter, the words theos/deus/dieu or el/eloah/elohiym all refer to a different aspect of the divine. Those words all have their root in the idea of POWER. El means "mighty one" or "power". Elohiym, the standard plural noun used in the Hebrew Scripture for the Creator, means "mighty ones" or "powers".

There is only one Good, one God, but there are many powers in the world. Thus, the Creator was called El Elyon, the HIGHEST power. It is suggested in Scripture that at least certain of the might ones, the "gods" of the pagans, really existed - they were fallen angels, demons. Satan is certainly a mighty one, a great power indeed, greater than most of the angels in power - he is PROPERLY called a power - an ace - and if "god" in English has wholly replaced "ace" such that when we speak of pagan gods we say gods, not aces, then it would be entirely proper, linguistically speaking, to call Satan a god. Anything that has great power is, in this use of English, a god, and there are many gods. But there is only one Most High God - and he's a jealous god who does not permit his followers to worship any other gods.

A question, then, is whether or not any other powers exist AT ALL. Can we properly speak of natural forces, for example, or are all natural forces merely the direct power of God directly asserted (Is gravity the hand of God acting directly, or merely a power created by God but only the power of God indirectly? Does the distinction make a difference?)

There are many different uses of the word "god", and they don't mean the same thing.

As far as Catholics go, there is only one God, the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are no other Gods. There are other powers - angels, archangels, dominions, powers, thrones - and also demons, devils, and Satan himself, the prince of demons. There are earthly powers - kings and rulers. Lots of powers, but only one God. English-speaking Catholics use the word "gods" also, to refer to the various deities of the pagans. Most Catholics don't think that those pagan gods ever existed at all, that they were figments of the imagination. A minority think they were real, and devils and demons.

Mary is not part of the Trinity. She is not God. No Catholic would ever call her God, or a god, or a goddess. Powers within the Catholic Church are not gods and goddesses, they are orders of servants of God. Angels are God's messengers. Watchers watch. Mary is not an angel. She is human. Her role would best be described as emissary. God has sent her to many different peoples - the Mexicans for instance, at Guadelupe - to bring people closer to her son. She has been very effective in this role, and is revered for that. The native peoples of the Americas, the Indians, South, Central and across most of North American, are Christian BECAUSE OF Mary's mission. She did not come to the Spaniards. They came with conquest and their religion, but the natives were not interested in adopting the religion of their conquerors, killers and rulers. They feared them and hated them. But Mary didn't come to the Spanish. She came to an Aztec Indian, she talked to him in his native Nahuatl, told him that she had particular compassion for the suffering natives in their labors and afflictions, and that she would bring them relief. She sent him to see the Spanish bishop, who did not believe him.

This was a new thing under the sun, and while it did bring the natives into the Catholic Church, it did so not through the missionaries of the Church and the regular structures of the Church, but by the intense devotion that sprang up in the Aztecs to their lady, the Mother of God, who had come to help THEM in their suffering.

Thus, when the Mexicans and Latin Americans threw off the Spanish and their rule, they did not (and have not, and will not) through off their Lady, or her Son to whom she brought them, or his Father. The Latin American Indians were converted to Christianity by the embassy of Mary to them directly. The Church did not CONTROL this, it merely had to accept and admit it, because of the miracles.

She is not a goddess. She is an emissary - and to date the only human who has been sent back to earth by God to teach things. It would appear then, that among all of the humans who have ever lived, after Jesus, Jesus' mother, Mary, is the most highly favored of all. It appears that she has some delegated authority to act as emissary, to protect and nurture.

The Norse and Greeks and Hindus would have CALLED her a goddess, within their thinking, but Catholics do not, because she is not.

 

[Thursday]

I get your point now however You can support this better and with a stronger emphasis though by simply calling Jesus god. It's more direct

It is correct, however, and it shouldn't bother any Christian.

 

[kepha31]

Your analogy doesn't make sense because Mary is a human while the Holy Spirit and Jesus is another thing altogether. And god prior to his manifestation in flesh was just 100% divine so calling her mother of god wouldn't fit. Mother of Jesus is better suited since Jesus=100% flesh 100% divine and who came out of her womb was 100% flesh and 100% divine not just 100% divine. You have to include both you can't exclude the human part.

It is impossible to find any official Catholic dogmatic document stating that Mary is the “mother of God the Father” or “mother of the Holy Spirit.” But to deny that Mary was the mother of God (the Son) would be to deny that Jesus was God. Catholics use the term in the first place to glorify Jesus! God the Father (not Catholics) chose to use Mary in the incarnation. Nor is it true that anything else Catholics believe about Mary changes their understanding of this description: agreed-upon by the vast majority of all Christians throughout history.
"Mother of God" = Greater than God?

 

[Monk Brendan]

and her Assumption into Heaven

The Orthodox do believe in the Assumption of Mary--Although THEY call it The Dormition of the Theotokos

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

It is impossible to find any official Catholic dogmatic document stating that Mary is the “mother of God the Father” or “mother of the Holy Spirit.” But to deny that Mary was the mother of God (the Son) would be to deny that Jesus was God. Catholics use the term in the first place to glorify Jesus! God the Father (not Catholics) chose to use Mary in the incarnation. Nor is it true that anything else Catholics believe about Mary changes their understanding of this description: agreed-upon by the vast majority of all Christians throughout history.
"Mother of God" = Greater than God?

Interesting

 

[AlexDTX]

Altogether sola scripturists, is Mary the Mother of God or isn't she?

The problem is semantics. By saying Mary is the mother of God, it implies that she preceded the eternal in giving birth to the eternal, which is a logical impossibility if the word "eternal" is understood to mean, "with no beginning nor end". Was the eternal Word inside Mary in the birth of Jesus? Of course He was. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit dwells in me as a born again Christian. Does that make me the father of God? We all know that is absurd.

 

[AlexDTX]

Well how can God die a horrible painful death, at the hands of unbelieving pagans, if He is immortal and cannot die, and is source of the very existence of such people?

God did not die, the man Jesus died. Romans 5 makes it clear that we are saved by the man Jesus just as we were condemned by the man Adam. However, since the early believers did not understand Paul, they condemned it as the Nestorian heresy. But calling something an error does not make it an error, nor does creating a new error make that error right.

 

[AlexDTX]

. Sola Scripture, is the belief that if you just pick up a Bible and read it, regardless of what you know, when you finish, and put it down, you should instantly understand the faith, and how to be saved.

Martin Luther meant that the only authoritative source was the Bible, not traditions nor non-canonical books.

 

[Vicomte13]

Your analogy doesn't make sense because Mary is a human while the Holy Spirit and Jesus is another thing altogether. And god prior to his manifestation in flesh was just 100% divine so calling her mother of god wouldn't fit. Mother of Jesus is better suited since Jesus=100% flesh 100% divine and who came out of her womb was 100% flesh and 100% divine not just 100% divine. You have to include both you can't exclude the human part.

You meant "You can't exclude the divine part". Mary was obviously the mother of a human boy - Jesus.
She was, simultaneously, the month of a divine boy - the Son of God. She was the mother of Jesus, who was the Son of God. Ergo, she was the mother of God. It's not harder than that.

I see what you're arguing, that there is some "essence" of divinity that must come from the mother also, for the child to be mother of God.

I think that's...I want to say "stubborn" because I can see you're dug in on the point and cannot concede it, or else you'd have to agree that Mary was the "Mother of God", strictly speaking, even though you don't like the expression.

But calling you stubborn would be mean. So instead I'll but it this way. Your own parents did not make you entirely. Yes, you got their chromosomes, but the breath of life that is you, your spirit (your "soul" in the popular, though inaccurate, vernacular), did not come from either of them. Nor did it spontaneously generate. Your spirit was breathed into you by God the Father. You are also divine, in that it is a breath of God that makes you You. You HAVE a body, you ARE a spirit, and that spirit proceeded forth out of the mouth of God to bring you into being. In this sense, you are every bit as much a son of God as Jesus was.

The difference? The difference is that your flesh is the product of the mating of a human male with a human female, so the flesh itself was begotten of flesh, and it holds a spirit breathed out by God.

Jesus's flesh was the product of the mating of a human female with the Holy Spirit, so the flesh was begotten of flesh and of spirit, and it holds a spirit breathed out by God. To beget means to father, in the biological sense. Adam was made, handmade in fact, by God, but he was not begotten by God. Mary was God's wife in the literal biological and original sense of the word: she was a virgin, and God directly impregnated her. (This, by the way, is the reason why she remained untouched by men thereafter.)

We are begotten by our fathers, but breathed into existence by our heavenly father. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be begotten anew (he did not say "born again", he said "begotten again" - one is BORN of one's mother, but begotten by one's father), of water and the spirit, while the wind (which is God's spirit) blew all around. When one is begotten anew in spirit, God breathes a new spirit upon you.

Jesus was born human and divine both. His mother was his one and only mother. He was God, so therefore she was the mother of God. It does speak for itself.

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

You meant "You can't exclude the divine part". Mary was obviously the mother of a human boy - Jesus.
She was, simultaneously, the month of a divine boy - the Son of God. She was the mother of Jesus, who was the Son of God. Ergo, she was the mother of God. It's not harder than that.

I see what you're arguing, that there is some "essence" of divinity that must come from the mother also, for the child to be mother of God.

I think that's...I want to say "stubborn" because I can see you're dug in on the point and cannot concede it, or else you'd have to agree that Mary was the "Mother of God", strictly speaking, even though you don't like the expression.

But calling you stubborn would be mean. So instead I'll but it this way. Your own parents did not make you entirely. Yes, you got their chromosomes, but the breath of life that is you, your spirit (your "soul" in the popular, though inaccurate, vernacular), did not come from either of them. Nor did it spontaneously generate. Your spirit was breathed into you by God the Father. You are also divine, in that it is a breath of God that makes you You. You HAVE a body, you ARE a spirit, and that spirit proceeded forth out of the mouth of God to bring you into being. In this sense, you are every bit as much a son of God as Jesus was.

The difference? The difference is that your flesh is the product of the mating of a human male with a human female, so the flesh itself was begotten of flesh, and it holds a spirit breathed out by God.

Jesus's flesh was the product of the mating of a human female with the Holy Spirit, so the flesh was begotten of flesh and of spirit, and it holds a spirit breathed out by God. To beget means to father, in the biological sense. Adam was made, handmade in fact, by God, but he was not begotten by God. Mary was God's wife in the literal biological and original sense of the word: she was a virgin, and God directly impregnated her. (This, by the way, is the reason why she remained untouched by men thereafter.)

We are begotten by our fathers, but breathed into existence by our heavenly father. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be begotten anew (he did not say "born again", he said "begotten again" - one is BORN of one's mother, but begotten by one's father), of water and the spirit, while the wind (which is God's spirit) blew all around. When one is begotten anew in spirit, God breathes a new spirit upon you.

Jesus was born human and divine both. His mother was his one and only mother. He was God, so therefore she was the mother of God. It does speak for itself.

Tbh this is getting no where I think I'll just end the discussion we went away from the topic of the OP anyway and sort of took the thread over

 

[archer75]

The problem is semantics. By saying Mary is the mother of God, it implies that she preceded the eternal in giving birth to the eternal, which is a logical impossibility if the word "eternal" is understood to mean, "with no beginning nor end". Was the eternal Word inside Mary in the birth of Jesus? Of course He was. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit dwells in me as a born again Christian. Does that make me the father of God? We all know that is absurd.

I don't have the CCC at hand, but I think RC teaching is very clear about this: Mary is specifically said to be the Mother of God NOT in the sense that she preceded or created God. But in the sense that she was the mother of Jesus, who was the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity and co-eternal with the Father.

 

[Vicomte13]

Tbh this is getting no where I think I'll just end the discussion we went away from the topic of the OP anyway and sort of took the thread over

Yeh. We can't get anywhere, because to concede the other's point would be to surrender the argument itself.

 

[Robster1981]

A good friend of mine (who is Pentacostal) has some very confused ideas about what Catholics believe. I mentioned to him that there are people who call themselves "Christian Wiccans" and believe that Mary is a goddess, and he said that it sounds like they've got some Catholic ideology behind them. I'm like, uh, Catholics don't think that Mary is a goddess. He said, "They think she's the Queen Of Heaven and the mother of God. So yeah, they kinda do." He thinks that, while Catholics don't actually refer to her as a goddess, she's given the same status minus the name. I tried to explain that Catholics DO NOT believe that Mary is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being and that there's a big difference between honoring Mary more than they should and actually worshipping her, and my friend just said, "You don't know much about pantheons, do you?" I asked my dad (who is Eastern Orthodox but knows a lot about other denominations' beliefs) if he could explain what Catholics ACTUALLY believe so I could tell my friend, and he said that my friend has heard misinformation spread by Chick Publishing. He's busy right now and won't be able to explain what Catholics believe until this evening, and I realized it would probably be better to ask Catholics anyway. So, Catholics. What do you ACTUALLY believe about Mary?

You say catholics don't believe that Mary is omniscient etc but yet catholics believe Mary can hear the prayers of thousands of catholics simultaneously. She would need to be omniscient to do that. Mary is not the Mother of God. She was known as Jesus' mother while He was on earth because she gave birth to Him but that was 2000 years & Jesus existed before Mary was born. He created her. She is no longer His mother. He is not in heaven referring to her as 'mom'... He is God the Son who is uncreated unlike Mary who was created by Him. Technically she was seen as His mother but she is not His mother today because God does not have a mother. To call her the mother of God means she is the mother of God the Father too and Holy Spirit because God is a Triune being consisting of Father, Son & Holy Spirit. According to scripture Jesus was made a little lower than the angels while He was on earth so Mary could be seen as His mother but after He was resurrected He became fully God Almighty again & she was no longer His mother from that moment on. Read the bible without your Catholic glasses on and you will see the truth. I was a Catholic by the way but then I got born again.

 

[AlexDTX]

I don't have the CCC at hand, but I think RC teaching is very clear about this: Mary is specifically said to be the Mother of God NOT in the sense that she preceded or created God. But in the sense that she was the mother of Jesus, who was the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity and co-eternal with the Father.

Yes, I understand that. Many of the Catholics on this thread have already made that clear, which is why I said the "problem is semantics" because the way it is said creates the implication I stated.