‘Mother of God’
Dave Armstrong seeks to present ‘Biblical evidence for Catholicism’.
I find his writings irenic, if ultimately unconvincing on distinctive Catholic teachings such as the doctrine of Mary.
In The Blessed Virgin Mary: Hail, Full of Grace Armstrong seeks to define and justify various aspects of that doctrine.
The following summarises the main points. I refrain, for the time being, from making critical comments.
(a) Mother of God
Lk 1:43 (“The mother of my Lord”) is appealed to in support of the doctrine of Mary as ‘Mother of God’. This doctrine was affirmed by General Council of Ephesus, in AD431. The initial intention was to affirm the deity of Christ, but the term became increasingly associated with the exaltation of Mary.
The logic is: Jesus was God. Mary was the mother of Jesus. Therefore, Mary was the mother of God.
This expression:
‘becomes the biblical foundation for the liturgical and dogmatic title “Theotokos”: “Mother of God” or “the one who gave birth to the one who is God”, which was legislated to be the official dogmatic language of the church by the Council of Ephesus in 431: “Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the Holy Virgin to be the Mother of God [θεοτόκον] because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her.”’ (Pelikan, Brazos Commentary on Acts 20:28)
According to Cardinal Newman,
‘The title Theotokos, or Mother of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive times, and had been used, among other writers, by Origen, Eusebius, St. Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Nyssen, and St. Nilus.’
(b) Immaculate conception
Lk 1:28 – the expression, ‘full of grace’ is thought to imply, amongst other things, Mary’s immaculate conception.
Should this be translated ‘highly favoured’ (AV, Jerusalem), or ‘full of grace’ (Douay)? Either way, it is claimed that:
‘the uniqueness of Mary is strongly indicated, and the Immaculate Conception can rightly be deemed entirely consistent with the meaning of this passage.’
Gen 3:15 is also appealed to – ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’
According to Ludwig Ott:
‘Mary stands with Christ in a perfect and victorious enmity towards Satan and his following. Many of the later scholastics and a great many modern theologians argue, in the light of this interpretation . . . that: Mary’s victory over Satan would not have been perfect, if she had ever been under his dominion. Consequently she must have entered this world without the stain of original sin.’
Lk 1:35 – “The power of the Most High will overshadow you”
This is thought to allude to the Shekinah glory of God, Exodus 24:15-16, 40:34-38, 1 Kings 8:10, and to the cloud at the transfiguration of Jesus, Matthew 17:5 = Mark 9:7 = Luke 9:34.
‘Mary, as Theotokos, becomes, in effect, the new temple and holy of holies, where God dwelt in a special, spatially-located fashion. In particular, Scripture seems to be making a direct symbolic parallelism between Mary and the ark of the covenant. She is the bearer and ark of the New Covenant, which Jesus brings about (Hebrews 8:6-13, 12:24). The ark of the old covenant was constructed according to meticulous instructions from God ( Exodus 25:9, 39:42-43). How much more perfect must the “God-bearer” be, who would carry in her womb God made flesh, the eternal Logos, or “Word” of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity?’
If, as the OT repeatedly teaches, sinful humans may not approach God in his holiness without dire consequences, it follows that Mary must have been granted the grace of sinlessness from her conception onwards:
‘Mary, because of her ineffable physical and spiritual relationship with God the Son, the Holy Spirit (as “spouse,” so to speak), and God the Father (“the Daughter of Zion” typology), necessarily had to be granted the grace of sinlessness from conception, just as all of us must be cleansed utterly in order to be present with God in all His fullness in heaven (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 3:13-17, 1 John 3:3-9, Revelation 21:27). The Immaculate Conception is merely the supreme, glorious realization of the notion which leaps out from practically every page of Scripture from beginning to end – that God is holy, and the closer we get to Him, the more we must be holy.’
To be sure, Mary needed a saviour, like the rest of us (Lk 1:47) –
‘The difference between Mary and other ultimately saved persons is that they had all fallen into the filthy pit of sin, whereas she had not. But she certainly would have, too, if it were not for God’s special act of grace whereby she was conceived immaculate and spared from the inheritance of original sin. God redeemed us from the pit, but prevented her from falling into it. In both cases, it is proper to speak of God as having “saved” his creatures “from the pit.”‘
(c) Assumption
Lk 1:28 is again appealed to for the doctrine that Mary, upon death, was received, body and soul, into heaven. Since she was ‘full of grace’, she was preserved from the curse of sin, which includes the corruption of the body (cf. Gen 3:19; Psa 16:10).
Precursers are found in the accounts of Enoch (Hebrews 11:5; cf. Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:1,11). Parallels are drawn with Paul’s being caught up to the third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, with the ‘rapture’ of 1 Thess 4:15-17. The opening of the graves around the time of Jesus’ resurrection (Matthew 27:52-53) is also suggestive.
(d) Perpetual virginity
Because adelphos can refer to a range of relationships, it is argued that Jesus’ ‘brothers’ need not necessarily have been his siblings. They may, for example, have been his cousins, of half-brothers from a previous marriage of Joseph.
Lk 2:41-51 – it would appear that the 12-year-old Jesus was an only child.
Whereas Mt 13:55 mentions James and Joseph as Jesus’ ‘brothers’, it appears from Mt 27:56, Mk 15:40, and Jn 19:25 that they were sons of Mary, wife of Clopas:
‘Matthew 13:55-56 and Mark 6:3 mention Simon, Jude and “sisters” along with James and Joseph, calling all adelphoi. Since we know for sure at least James and Joseph are not Jesus’ blood brothers, the most likely interpretation of Matthew 13:55 is that all these “brothers” are cousins’
The reference to Christ as ‘first-born’ does not prove that subsequent children were born to Mary. The primary meaning of the word prototokos is ‘pre-eminent’. In Jewish thinking:
‘the “first-born” was ordinarily the child who was first to open the womb (Exodus 13:2), whether there were other children or not. This is probably the meaning of Matthew 1:25, in which case hypothetical younger children of Mary are not implied at all, contrary to the standard present-day Protestant assertions.’
In Jn 19:26-27 Jesus commits Mary to the care of the Apostle John. It is unlikely that he would have done so if he had any brothers.
Mary’s reply to Gabriel (“How can this be, since I have no husband?”) suggests a vow of perpetual virginity.
Mt 1:24-25 Joseph . . . knew her not until she had borne a son . . . Suggests to many that Mary and Joseph did have sexual relations after Jesus’ birth. In reply, it is argued that the word ‘until’ ‘does not necessarily imply that they lived on a different footing afterwards’ (JFB).
Mary’s perpetual virginity was maintained not only by many ancients, but also by figures including Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger and Wesley.
(e) Spiritual mother
John 19:26-27 . . . he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” . . .
The argument here is that:
‘It is quite reasonable to assume that in this utterance of Jesus on the Cross, more is involved than simply asking John to look after His mother. For Jesus addresses Mary first, which is odd if in fact no spiritual meaning is to be found here. John, like Nicodemus (John 3:1-15) is a representative figure in this instance: the disciple of Christ, in relationship to the Mother of the Church. As he would care for her physical needs, so she was to be to him (and all Christians) a Spiritual Mother. (32) Neither Mary nor John are called by their proper names. Rather, they are the archetypes of “Mother Church” (33) and the faithful follower of Christ. The double phraseology recalls the covenantal formula of the Old Testament: I will be his father, and he shall be my son . . . (2 Samuel 7:14; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:16,18, Hebrews 1:5, Revelation 21:7). The motherhood of the Church is seen in passages such as Galatians 4:26: But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.’
(f) Intercessor
Believers pray for one another. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that Mary, as the most exalted of God’s creatures, intercedes in a way which, although inferior to the intercession of Christ himself, is superior to ours:
‘As the preeminent saint and “all-holy one”, Mary has a singular role in heaven as an intercessor for us (James 5:16), and, as such, is venerated due to her unique attributes and privileges. This aspect has been dealt with generally with regard to the “communion of saints.” Mary is unique in this regard because she is the Mother of God and without sin, and is, therefore, the very highest and exalted of all God’s creatures.’
(g) Mediatrix
According to Ludwig Ott: