Why Believe in Perpetual Virginity?

SolomonVII

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Your premise of "sola scriptura" is not in the Bible.
I have not given a sola scriptura premise. You are arguing a strawman, copiously so.


Then explain to me why Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Bollinger all taught the PVoM, and every single Protestant church taught it until a handful of liberal radicals the 19th century came along. That's 5 times I've post this request, and you keep ignoring it, because you refuse to admit you have deviated from 2000 years of Christian thought, Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic. It's not us with the heresy.
It is not really my obligation to explain why, since my contention was never that they did or didn't. My only contention is that the Bible does not teach PVM



These explanations and defenses simply are not asserting Biblical proofs for the Virginity of Mary. Anyone with a semblance of honesty would recognize that.
What the defenses and apologia are doing are offering possible plausible explanations of how a married Jewish woman might potentially remain a virgin, or how it is plausible that what the Bible describes as brothers and sisters of Jesus are in fact possibly not brothers and sisters.
Instead of asserting Mary's virginity, they are running interference with readings of the Bible that offer possible contrary proof that Mary had other children.
Since it was not my contention that these brothers referred to are indeed Mary's progeny, there is no reason for me to address these strawmen proofs and defenses.


Ezekiel 44:1-2
ignored by SolomonVII
Ezekiel 44 is about the Temple. It is reading a theology already decided upon by people who already believe in EV back into the Bible.


Luke 1:34 - well explained by prodomos in post #458
ignored by SolomonVII

"As an Evangelical, I had long regarded the reading of Ezekiel 44:1-2 to support Mary’s perpetual virginity as mere 'proof-texting.' I thought the Fathers were beginning with this passage and then trying to build a doctrine of perpetual virginity on it. But the more I saw how the early Church (including the New Testament authors)
  • linked the tabernacle,
  • the temple,
  • and the Body of Christ,
  • and the roles of Mary,
  • the ark,
  • and the gate of the temple,
the more I came to realize that the Church’s faith in Mary’s perpetual virginity was not derived from Ezekiel 44:1-2 any more than her faith in the virgin birth was derived from Isaiah 7:14. . .
ignored by SolomonVII
Luke 1:34 is about the Virgin birth and that is an example of a theology that is apostolic, Biblical, and historically based, as it ties back to people who are personal witnesses to Christ and his family.


There is no verse that explicitly states Mary remained a virgin therefore Mary did not remain a virgin is a non sequitur fallacy.
THERE IS NO VERSE THAT EXPLICITLY STATES MARY REMAINED A VIRGIN.
FULL STOP!
YES YES YES !!! That is what I have been contending all along. That is all that I have been contending all along.
YOU KNOW IT AND I KNOW IT AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT!!

Certainly EVERYTHING AFTER "therefore" would be a non sequitur.
Which is why I have not asserted anything about Mary's PV, except that it is not the testimony of any apostle, that it does not come from the Bible, and that it developed outside of the historical time frame where it could be considered to be a historically verifiable statement of Mary.

Now it's my turn...

image.jpg
Good choice. You have been embarrassing yourself by engaging in your scurrilous disregard of basic facts up to this point.
It is well past time for you to scurry.
Bye Bye.
 
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SolomonVII

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This statement tells me you are a Sola Scripturists, correct? If so, I'd like to ask you.......have you ever had an Altar Call and recited the "Sinners Prayer?" If so, could you show the verse/verses that supports it?
Um, the statement tells you nothing about me personally. If you want to know personal details about my faith, why not read the fact that I am listing my faith as Catholic?
Do Catholics in general do ALTAR CALLS, or recite Sinners Prayers.
I guess I do an altar call every time that I receive the Eucharist, and do sinners prayer everytime I contemplate what kind of person I really am, but my own views are probably much more complex than sola scriptura.
It is complicated, and too much to compress into a paragraph or too in a thread that is not about sola scriptura.
Other than that, please wait till I'm dead to stuff me in your convenient boxes.

De fide describes how a Catholic relates to PVM.
If it is dogma therefore, it begs the question of what kind of dogma it is?
Is it like the Resurrection which is belief in an actual historical event, that which if did not happen our faith would be in vain?
Or is it more like Adam and Eve and the snake as First Man and First Woman being tempted in the Garden, which is also something that Catholics believe in, but not necessarily as a historical accounting of actual events, which certainly could not be verified historically either?

It takes a bit of research to come to a conclusion on that. Research questions might involve such queries as is EV taught by the apostles, who are both authoritative and eye witnesses to the Holy Family ? Is it a theology that sources to the Bible, in a manner that is specific to the person of Mary?
And does the time sequence of the devlopment of this dogma begin within the lifetime of Mary and the people who knew her, or is a subsequent development of Christian theology outside of that specific time frame?

For example, people one hundred years hence may come to believe that Elivs Presley had wings. Whether or not it isworthy to believed in is not the focus of the first question. the question is when did this belief arise. If friends of Elvis who knew him personally left this testimony about him in time capsurles, then that would make it an historical witness. Otherwise it would not be considered a belief supported by the historical evidence, even after eighteen hundred years of people believing in it.

When it comes to theology, it is not just a question of whether a dogma is true, but a question of how the dogma is true, what a dogma spiritually means.


That becomes a more interesting question to me than listening to Catholics talk about Jesus passing through Mary's vagina without breaking the hymen.
 
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Fidelibus

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Um, the statement tells you nothing about me personally. If you want to know personal details about my faith, why not read the fact that I am listing my faith as Catholic?


Lot's of people call themselves Catholic, but that does not necessarily make them Catholic.
I think Catholic Apologists John Martignoni explains it nicely:


"If you want to call yourself Catholic, but you want to pick and choose for yourself which of the Church's teachings to accept and which to reject, you give everyone else who calls themselves Catholic the right to do the same thing.

For example, you believe women should be priests...in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1577 states, "Only a baptized man validly receives ordination...For this reason the ordination of women is not possible!" You don't believe that...well, that's fine...[RIP] just tear that page out of your Catechism...you just made it a Catechism of your Catholic Church...not mine.

But remember, if you can throw doctrines out, so can everyone else who calls themselves Catholic. That gives Joe Parishioner over at St. Doubting Thomas Catholic Church the right to throw out the Church's social justice teachings...he doesn't feel like feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and all that other "bleeding heart" stuff - Paragraphs 2401 -2463 [RIP]...he just made it a Catechism of his Catholic Church...not mine and not yours.

You believe contraception is okay? Paragraph 2370 says contraception is intrinsically evil! [RIP] Joe Parishioner doesn't like what the Church teaches on the death penalty - Paragraphs 2266-2267[RIP]. You don't like what it teaches on pages 55-60 [RIP]. He doesn't like what it teaches on pages 128-140 [RIP]

Can you see what's happening? I heard it said once that there is a shortage of vocations to the priesthood in the United States, but no shortage of vocations to the Papacy! If we don't believe in all of it, if we each appoint ourselves Pope and throw out a doctrine here or a doctrine there, then our faith is no longer Catholic."


With this being said, and looking back at all you have posted, do you think it possible you could be like "Joe Parishioner" and appointing yourself Pope?
 
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SolomonVII

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Lot's of people call themselves Catholic, but that does not necessarily make.....

Another day, another troll.
If you had even read my post, you might have had something valuable to say.
As it is, there is nothing here worthwhile responding to.

Define your faith by Holy Hymens and your perceived ideas of the inherent sinfullness and impurity of married women having sex with their husbands. That is what is important to those of you who call yourself Catholic and define your faith in that way., so just do it.

As for myself, I will define PV according to what the true teachings of the Catholic Church must be, which will always align themselves with what is known about apostolic teaching, and the Bible and history. Truth cannot contradict truth, or be based on the pseudoepigraphia already rejected by the Church as being non-authoritative.

I will not lie about what the apostles have said, about what the Bible says, and misconstrue history in order to bend the truth to my own personal warped intransigent theological notions.
 
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Phil 1:21

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Lot's of people call themselves Catholic, but that does not necessarily make them Catholic.
I think Catholic Apologists John Martignoni explains it nicely:


"If you want to call yourself Catholic, but you want to pick and choose for yourself which of the Church's teachings to accept and which to reject, you give everyone else who calls themselves Catholic the right to do the same thing.

For example, you believe women should be priests...in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1577 states, "Only a baptized man validly receives ordination...For this reason the ordination of women is not possible!" You don't believe that...well, that's fine...[RIP] just tear that page out of your Catechism...you just made it a Catechism of your Catholic Church...not mine.

But remember, if you can throw doctrines out, so can everyone else who calls themselves Catholic. That gives Joe Parishioner over at St. Doubting Thomas Catholic Church the right to throw out the Church's social justice teachings...he doesn't feel like feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and all that other "bleeding heart" stuff - Paragraphs 2401 -2463 [RIP]...he just made it a Catechism of his Catholic Church...not mine and not yours.

You believe contraception is okay? Paragraph 2370 says contraception is intrinsically evil! [RIP] Joe Parishioner doesn't like what the Church teaches on the death penalty - Paragraphs 2266-2267[RIP]. You don't like what it teaches on pages 55-60 [RIP]. He doesn't like what it teaches on pages 128-140 [RIP]

Can you see what's happening? I heard it said once that there is a shortage of vocations to the priesthood in the United States, but no shortage of vocations to the Papacy! If we don't believe in all of it, if we each appoint ourselves Pope and throw out a doctrine here or a doctrine there, then our faith is no longer Catholic."


With this being said, and looking back at all you have posted, do you think it possible you could be like "Joe Parishioner" and appointing yourself Pope?

Ah yes, I remember growing up in the RCC and being told that unless I unquestioningly believed everything the RCC said I was not a true Catholic. Based on that, I suspect the number of "true Catholics" is somewhere south of the total needed to take the field for a major league baseball game.
 
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seashale76

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OP: The ever-virginity of the Theotokos is tied directly to Christology. She is the God-bearer. God the Word came to us through her womb, so she is the gate, the ladder of divine descent, the burning bush, the Ark of the Covenant, and like how the path through the Red Sea was closed it was the same with the Theotokos. If that didn't make her Panagia (all-holy) then nothing would. One does not defile what God has made holy.

Those at Nicea believed in her ever-virginity. Luther, Zwigli, Calvin, and Wesley all believed it. To deny she remained a virgin is only a very modern disbelief- and that's quite curious to me.
 
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bbbbbbb

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OP: The ever-virginity of the Theotokos is tied directly to Christology. She is the God-bearer. God the Word came to us through her womb, so she is the gate, the ladder of divine descent, the burning bush, the Ark of the Covenant, and like how the path through the Red Sea was closed it was the same with the Theotokos. If that didn't make her Panagia (all-holy) then nothing would. One does not defile what God has made holy.

Those at Nicea believed in her ever-virginity. Luther, Zwigli, Calvin, and Wesley all believed it. To deny she remained a virgin is only a very modern disbelief- and that's quite curious to me.

You are operating on the fundamental assumption that all sexual intercourse, even within the bonds of holy matrimony, defiles a person.
 
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bbbbbbb

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Another day, another troll.
If you had even read my post, you might have had something valuable to say.
As it is, there is nothing here worthwhile responding to.

Define your faith by Holy Hymens and your perceived ideas of the inherent sinfullness and impurity of married women having sex with their husbands. That is what is important to those of you who call yourself Catholic and define your faith in that way., so just do it.

As for myself, I will define PV according to what the true teachings of the Catholic Church must be, which will always align themselves with what is known about apostolic teaching, and the Bible and history. Truth cannot contradict truth, or be based on the pseudoepigraphia already rejected by the Church as being non-authoritative.

I will not lie about what the apostles have said, about what the Bible says, and misconstrue history in order to bend the truth to my own personal warped intransigent theological notions.

I greatly admire your integrity in the face of opposition.
 
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seashale76

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You are operating on the fundamental assumption that all sexual intercourse, even within the bonds of holy matrimony, defiles a person.
No. I am operating on the fundamental assumption that once God has set aside something or someone for Himself, then it defiles that person to go back on their agreement. She gave birth to God. The God of the universe was in her womb. It is obvious that many in these latter days don't get it.
 
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prodromos

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You are operating on the fundamental assumption that all sexual intercourse, even within the bonds of holy matrimony, defiles a person.
No. That which God has made holy is never again used for common purposes. Common purposes are not dirty or unclean. Pouring beer into a glass for a drink does not defile the glass, but pouring beer into a consecrated vessel for the same purpose does.
 
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bbbbbbb

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No. I am operating on the fundamental assumption that once God has set aside something or someone for Himself, then it defiles that person to go back on their agreement. She gave birth to God. The God of the universe was in her womb. It is obvious that many in these latter days don't get it.

I see your point. Thus, I now more fully understand the Miracle of Loreto, Italy. Do you think that the holy house in Loreto is defiled every time a person has entered it?
 
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seashale76

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I see your point. Thus, I now more fully understand the Miracle of Loreto, Italy. Do you think that the holy house in Loreto is defiled every time a person has entered it?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
 
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bbbbbbb

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SolomonVII

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I greatly admire your integrity in the face of opposition.
Thank you.
I think that under all the copious layers of obfuscation lies the fact that when it comes to the three points that we two agreed upon, namely that PV is not taught in Scripture, that it was not taught by any of the (twelve) apostles, and that it developed out of the time window where it rightly could be considered biographical, everybody actually understands that these are just the basic facts. These facts were eventually admitted by the opponents to in the depths of all those layers of obfuscation.
That opposition therefore was deceit right from the beginning.

I am sure that as with anybody, you and I will have theological disagreements. That does not mean that I am entitled to make up my own set of facts to support my theology.
And that is what was being done here. Fact were being altered to fit the theology.

As a final point, theology that is based in deceit inevitably leads to horrible theology.
For example, any theology that posits that a married woman with an active sexual life with her legitimate husband is therefore somehow less pure, more sinful, and unholy on that account is a horrid theology.
Whatever PV eventually is decided to mean by those who hold to it de fide, it cannot mean that.
Only once we accept the facts, and drop the deceit, do we become freed to discover a better theology from the faith handed to us.
For example, the symbology of Mary in Catholic Theology extends well beyond her biography. Those whose theology see her described as Israel, as the Ark of the Covenant, as Noah's Ark, and as the Temple, already ought to recognize that. PV is based in something other than just the biography of Mary. So that is where de fide folk ought to look for proper explanation of the dogma, and not in Holy Hymens.
 
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thecolorsblend

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I have no idea what you're talking about.
He doesn't either, I think.

You are operating on the fundamental assumption that all sexual intercourse, even within the bonds of holy matrimony, defiles a person.
The Church believes that sex (inside marriage) is good... but there are some things better.
 
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bbbbbbb

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He doesn't either, I think.

The Church believes that sex (inside marriage) is good... but there are some things better.

Are you SeaShale? Are you Eastern Orthodox? Do you assume that "The Church" you speak of is actually the Eastern Orthodox Church and you represent its views?
 
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thecolorsblend

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Are you SeaShale?
Nah, I'm thecolorsblend.

Are you Eastern Orthodox?
Nope, I'm American.

Do you assume that "The Church" you speak of is actually the Eastern Orthodox Church
Being as my profile lists me as Catholic, I'll hazard a guess that the answer is "no".

and you represent its views?
I wouldn't dream of speaking for the Eastern Orthodox.

Since we're asking random questions here, do you claim to represent the views of the Methodists?
 
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bbbbbbb

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Nah, I'm thecolorsblend.

Nope, I'm American.

Being as my profile lists me as Catholic, I'll hazard a guess that the answer is "no".

I wouldn't dream of speaking for the Eastern Orthodox.

Since we're asking random questions here, do you claim to represent the views of the Methodists?

I have never responded to a post addressed to a Methodist and don't know why you think I might be one.

OTOH, you decided to address a particular response to a post I addressed to SeaShale, who is not you, and is Eastern Orthodox, not Roman Catholic.

I am still awaiting a response from SeaShale.
 
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prodromos

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I am still awaiting a response from SeaShale.
Why? Seeing as SeaShale is Eastern Orthodox, and the house you referred to is a Catholic pilgrimage. Why do you expect us to pass any sort of judgement on something completely outside our tradition?
 
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