mother of god.....?

Question

i know this phrase riles up protestants...but what i do not understand is WHY?? clearly protestants make no bones about the fact the jesus is indeed God. however...many protestants think it is wrong to call mary the mother of god...but she was. it is not that she is mother of the father....but of the son! (both God)

please enlighten me on what i am missing.

if you explain yourself validly i'll give you the points regardless of whether i agree with you.

Answer 1

When a child is adopted by a non-blood related couple... does the child still call the new parents Father and Mother?

When Jesus was a Child... I truly doubt that he would address Mary as ..." OI! Mary!" or Joseph as " Hey! Carpenter man!", he would address them both as their earth father and mother.

If calling Mary, "Mother" is good enough for Jesus, the very Prince of Heaven, why is it not good enough for others who follow his path? Unless of course they think they are better than Jesus Christ......

Answer 2

Justin,

You are absolutely correct. In Luke 1:43 Elizabeth greets Mary with the word, "how does this happen that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?"

Jesus is true God and true man. Gal 4:4 says "God sent His Son, born of a woman." If Jesus is truly God-made-man, then Mary is truly the Mother of God.

God bless,
Stanbo

Answer 3

The upset is caused by two basic misunderstandings.

One is on the part of Protestants, not understanding the Title of "Theotokos", or "God Bearer". The real point is that Jesus was God before He was concieved in Mary's womb, He was God as the fetus within her, He was God as she gave birth....yada yada yada. Jesus was always God. THAT is the real point of the title. Mary had a very special job, among all humanity: to bear God in the flesh, and hold Him within her womb. Now we are all called to be Theotokoi, God bearers, and to bear Him within our hearts.

The protestant upset here comes from confusing this doctrine with the Gnostic doctrine of successive gods and goddesses. Some Protestants think that by calling Mary the "Mother of God" that some Catholics are exalting Mary over her Son and Saviour, Jesus Christ (by saying she pre-dated Him in eternity). According to the true Catholic understanding of the dogma, that belief is erroneous.

The second cause for concern, comes from some Catholic misunderstanding of the same teaching. SOME CATHOLICS ACT LIKE MARY IS A GODDESS. Ignorance of the Church's teachings here breeds some stupid mistakes and false beliefs among otherwise "good" Catholics. This in turn upsets the Protestants, who see such a belief as neo-paganism.

Answer 4

Title of Mother of God

Gospel of Luke 1:43, Elizabeth calls Mary "mother of my Lord" God.

Gospel of Matthew 1:23, virgin bears a SON, Emmanuel = God is with us.

Gospel of Luke 1:35, child born will be called holy, the Son of God.

Letters to the Galatians 4:4, God sent His Son, born of a woman.(Thus a mother)

Answer 5

I just don't understand what the drawback here is. I mean I don't know why Protestants hate The Blessed Virgin Mary like they do. All I can think of is in Genesis when the Lord says to Satan "I will put enmity between you and the woman", then I start worrying that Protestants that rant and rave about Mary will not be in too good of shape when they stand in front of our Lord and he asks them what they thought of his Mother? Or more likely they are not standing but, groveling because then they will recognize who they have hurt.

Answer 6

Hello Justin:

Mary was the mother of Jesus. Jesus was a mortal man just as you and I are.

The only thing special about him was that he had attained god realization. A goal that we can all aspire to.

If you read John 10: 34-39; you will see where Jesus called the pharisees gods.

If you read the bible carefully; you will see that jesus always calls himself "The son of man", and when he gives his two great commandments he says the following paraphrased

1. Love the Lord your God with all of your soul. strength amd mind.

2. love your neighbor as yourself.

He did NOT issue a third commandment "Worship me as Deity"

You need to understand there are two forms of Christianity. The religion OF Jesus, and the religion ABOUT Jesus.

The essenes and early Gnostics and early churches founded by the desciples was the religion OF Jesus. Then the Nicean council and Constantine twisted the religion to the Christianity we know today.

It was the Nicean council that threw many scriptures out of the authorized cannon such as the Infancy I and Infancy II, the gospel of Thomas, the book of Jasher, the gospel of Phillip, and many more.

Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within; and I suggest that you go within and search for your answers instead of relying on scriptures that have been edited, and translated many times.

Answer 7

Illogical or incompatible premises lead to unacceptable conclusions. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.

Here, the illogical or incompatible premises are:
God is three
God is one
God is eternal, never being born or dying
Jesus is God
Jesus was born and he died
etc

See the problem here? The Catholics and other Christians don't call this incompatible or illogical premises, they call it mysteries. But that's just a nice word for it.

When I was raised Catholic, I also asked this question, and they told me something like, Jesus is God and Man, Mary is the mother of the "man" part, but since Jesus' two natures (God and Man) are inseperable, she is ergo Mother of God. For what it's worth.

The real problem is the doctrine of the Trinity, that there is only one God, an invisible eternal spirit, yet Jesus, a mortal man, is also God, and there's a Ghost in the machine as well. The Bible does not mention Trinity; this doctrine was decided several hundred years later, and dissenters were persecuted and their churches destroyed and their books burned. This is one of many instances where the Church established power over humanity, by telling us that our power of reasoning is no good, that we ought to put aside the minds that God gave us and let them tell us what and how to think, under pain of hell. If we can swallow nonsense like the Trinity, we can also swallow nonsense like Original Sin, Priestly Celibacy, Salvation only for Believers, tithing, just wars, colonization, subjugation of women and native peoples, most sex is sinful, etc etc. (Yeah, I know some of this is in the bible, but none of it is reasonable., and all of it benefits the power of the church hierarchy while disempowering the people). Yeah yeah... Lean not to your own understanding, just believe what you're taught, what's been handed down from on high ... or else burn, like countless heretics before you!

I'm a shaman and a panthiest, and I've found a spiritual home in the Unitarian Universalist church, which is based on principles rather than creeds. Unitarian means God is one, not three; Universalist means salvation is universal. No more doing impossible mental gymnastics under pain of hell; that energy is better put to being a good person and living a good life.

Creeds are only words, after all. Any God worthy of the name, if He/She/It were to judge us at all, would be more likely to judge us by what we do and how we are, rather than what we say.

Answer 8

I am not protestant, as a matter of fact I am not christian at all. But, I can look at things from different viewpoints. If I were to say that Mary is not the mother of god, it is because she did not copulate with god, therefore she becomes nothing more than a vessel to carry the child.

Answer 9

Well the problem with calling Mary the mother of God is that she did not give birth to his divine nature; God the Father did. Jesus was both 100% God and 100% man. The Father was responsible for imparting his divine nature (Godliness) to him as was Mary responsible for imparting his humaness\flesh\DNA as well as his Jewish heritage and lineage from David.

We also strongly object to her being referred to as being "sinless" or the "virgin Mary." She was a virgin @ Jesus' birth but afterwards had many kids.

Answer 10

I do not think Protestants deny that Mary is the mother of Jesus (or, in your vernacular, the "Mother of God"). Protestants cannot understand why Catholics deify Mary as though she were on the same level as God! Catholics pray to Mary the same way that they pray to God! Mary was Jesus mother, but not God's wife! To make Mary out to be equal to God is blasphemous, in my opinion!