Thread: Purgatory: Perpetual virginity and vaginal birth Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

When I was young we'd be sent off to catechism lessons (dreary weekday evenings spent in an old house, being poorly catechised by a frazzled lay woman) and I remember the virgin birth was described as something like "light passing through a glass."

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

What different ideas do all of you have?

[ 24. July 2013, 06:53: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It's a Mystery?

Most Prots who believe in the virgin birth (some don't of course) don't believe that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ. They cite the 'until' in the verse about Joseph not 'knowing' his wife 'until' after she had conceived by the Holy Spirit and after Christ was born. And they'd cite Christ's 'brethren' of course - his brothers and sisters - traditionally taken to be close relatives but not siblings - as being later progeny from the union of Mary and Joseph.

Some Protestants have believed that she and Joseph didn't have natural relations even after Christ's birth - some High Church Anglicans believe that (and probably wouldn't count themselves as 'Protestants' though either, come to think of it).

Calvin believed in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary and so did John Wesley.

It isn't necessary, of course, to the Protestant schema for Mary to have remained a virgin so all the catechetical sleights of hand you refer to haven't had to gain currency.

I don't see how - if I can put this as delicately as possible - Mary's vaginal canal had to be kept miraculously intact for her to remain a virgin in the 'knowing a man' sense.

But it ain't an issue I get exercised over. It's one of those 'angels dancing on a pin-head' thing.

I'm happy to accept the virgin birth but I don't pretend to understand it but neither do I see the need to engage in speculation about the Virgin Mary's gynaecological arrangements for the rest of her life.

For a Protestant, I am quite 'Marian' in my approach, though ... despite my low-church/Free Church background.
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

When I was young we'd be sent off to catechism lessons (dreary weekday evenings spent in an old house, being poorly catechised by a frazzled lay woman) and I remember the virgin birth was described as something like "light passing through a glass."

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

What different ideas do all of you have?

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My belief is what you have described here. Blessed Jerome wrote concerning the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3007.htm

[ 30. April 2013, 19:26: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
loggat - it's one differences that unites us.
 

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Posted by Gextvedde (# 11084) on :
 
I don't have a strong opinion on the matter but as far as I was aware jesus had siblings which would perpetual virginity difficult. I'm sure others will have an explanation for that, I just haven't looked into the matter.

More interesting for me is what this doctrine is for, how it came about and how necessary do people consider it to be?
 

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Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
IIRC Calvin didn't express an opinion one way or the other, but he did note that it was impossible to disprove Mary's perpetual virginity from Scripture. Luther & Zwingli both affirmed her perpetual virginity, though.

With regard to the brothers mentioned in the Gospels, the usual explanation is that the word "adelphoi" (translated as "brothers" in most English Bibles) can also refer to any male relative in the same generation--therefore, adelphoi might be cousins and not brothers. Alternatively, the brothers might be Joseph's children from a previous marriage.

FWIW, I believe in her perpetual virginity, but don't consider it a first-tier issue. The RCC disagrees, I believe.
 

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Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
The Blessed Jerome had a few issues, it seems to me. How did he know whether or not midwives assisted Mary at the birth? Scripture is silent on the subject. 'Women's officiousness' indeed. I have to admit, the Herovidius guy has my sympathies. I detect spin ...

Gamaliel is right about the technicalities. A virgin is a person who has not had penetrative sex - the traditional understanding, anyway! A woman's hymen can break but she can still be a virgin. So yes, a vaginal birth was perfectly possible for the mother of our Lord. How else would Jesus have been born - ??

I do believe in the virginity of Mary at the point of conception. The conception of Jesus is special, yes. I don't believe in her perpetual virginity though - it doesn't fit the textual evidence of Scripture and it doesn't fit a more earthy and Jewish understanding of the marriage of Mary and Joseph.
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gextvedde:

More interesting for me is what this doctrine is for, how it came about and how necessary do people consider it to be?

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I think I can sum up my congregations stance

"You do not talk about lady in this way and Our Lady is definitely a lady!"

It seems to me a prurient interest. What on earth does it matter what the relationships between Joseph and Mary were after Jesus' birth.

Jengie

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I think I can sum up my congregations stance

"You do not talk about lady in this way and Our Lady is definitely a lady!"

It seems to me a prurient interest. What on earth does it matter what the relationships between Joseph and Mary were after Jesus' birth.

Jengie

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Originally posted by Custard
It also raises questions about Mary as being a role model for us - the Bible's picture of marriage tends to see sex as an important part of it. The idea smacks more of the later corruption of Christianity by neoPlatonism that saw the body, especially sex, as bad.

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Originally posted by loggats
To me this teaching reminds us of Mary's unique role in salvation history as the spouse of the Holy Spirit (Jesus is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit after all) and the fact she is pure and undefiled - her virginity is a sign of that.

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posted by loggats
It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

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Originally posted by Custard
It also raises questions about Mary as being a role model for us - the Bible's picture of marriage tends to see sex as an important part of it. The idea smacks more of the later corruption of Christianity by neoPlatonism that saw the body, especially sex, as bad.

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Good point.

If Mary was perpetually a virgin, then it makes a mockery of Catholic teaching about the family. The "holy family" becomes a terrible example of marital and procreative irresponsibility.

Your point about neoPlatonism is spot on. So much Christian theology has been infected by Greek philosophy, instead of drawing on its Jewish roots. This is one example.

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Originally posted by loggats
To me this teaching reminds us of Mary's unique role in salvation history as the spouse of the Holy Spirit (Jesus is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit after all) and the fact she is pure and undefiled - her virginity is a sign of that.

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That is what you say.

The Bible, however, says: "marriage is honourable among all and the bed undefiled". (Hebrews 13:4).

Therefore sex within marriage is not dirty, impure or defiled.

In other words, Mary could have had sex with her husband Joseph as much as she liked, and it would not have defiled her, because God says that the marriage bed is undefiled. I don't know how much clearer the text could be, quite frankly.

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I think this comes down to Mary as a unique creature, unlike any other woman in the world. St Louis de Montfort describes it beautifully (though the translation goes in for a bit of purple prose - try not to have an apoplectic fit if you bother reading this, it's about as Marian as you can get even for a Catholic saint):

"There is not and there will never be, either in God's creation or in His mind, a creature in whom He is so honoured as in the most Blessed Virgin Mary....

Mary is God's garden of Paradise, His own unspeakable world, into which His Son entered to do wonderful things, to tend it and to take His delight in it. He created a world for the wayfarer, that is, the one we are living in. He created a second world - Paradise - for the Blessed. He created a third for Himself, which He named Mary.

She is a world unknown to most mortals here on earth. Even the angels and saints in heaven find her incomprehensible, and are lost in admiration of a God who is so exalted and so far above them, so distant from them, and so enclosed in Mary, His chosen world, that they exclaim: "Holy, holy, holy" unceasingly."


 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
How funny, I was just thinking about the Perpetual Virginity today (I was in Westminster Cathedral). Anyway, Christianity has absorbed pagan - particularly Ancient Greek - views on virginity which did not apply to Judaism, and still don't. Indeed, the Jews were unusual amongst ancient religions in not having consecrated virgins and considering marriage and having a family to be holier than virginity.

Virginity being seen as 'pure' is a Greek idea, not a Hebrew one and so would have been utterly alien to Mary. For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

Also, if Mary had not had a regular vaginal birth she would not have needed to be purified and offer a sacrifice at the Temple, which we know she did.
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
How funny, I was just thinking about the Perpetual Virginity today (I was in Westminster Cathedral). Anyway, Christianity has absorbed pagan - particularly Ancient Greek - views on virginity which did not apply to Judaism, and still don't. Indeed, the Jews were unusual amongst ancient religions in not having consecrated virgins and considering marriage and having a family to be holier than virginity.

Virginity being seen as 'pure' is a Greek idea, not a Hebrew one and so would have been utterly alien to Mary. For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

Also, if Mary had not had a regular vaginal birth she would not have needed to be purified and offer a sacrifice at the Temple, which we know she did.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
How funny, I was just thinking about the Perpetual Virginity today (I was in Westminster Cathedral). Anyway, Christianity has absorbed pagan - particularly Ancient Greek - views on virginity which did not apply to Judaism, and still don't. Indeed, the Jews were unusual amongst ancient religions in not having consecrated virgins and considering marriage and having a family to be holier than virginity.

Virginity being seen as 'pure' is a Greek idea, not a Hebrew one and so would have been utterly alien to Mary. For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

Also, if Mary had not had a regular vaginal birth she would not have needed to be purified and offer a sacrifice at the Temple, which we know she did.

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posted by loggats
Seems like the Church's focus on her virginity (and the virginity of women) was itself empowering. She is pure, powerful and has a depth of identity independent of her relationship with a husband.

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• Mary was/is the most acceptable example of womanhood
• she holds that position because she was a virgin and remained a virgin
• qed virginity is the most highly prized quality for women - virgins = 1st class, non-virgins = 2nd class
• but Mary was also a mother - so women must also be mothers
• but to become a mother a woman must have sex which will make her a non-virgin
• moreover sex is dirty and shameful
• so women who are virgins and not mothers are not 1st class women because they are barren
• and women who are mothers have had sex so can't be virgins and so are 2nd class

As Lavinia Byrne said - you know women are in trouble when the pope mentions women and the Virgin Mary in the same sentence. For "pope" substitute "church" and you have the right picture.

What's this "depth of identity" - where are you finding that, pray? The Bible tells us virtually nothing about her - and some of the things that are there (like the fact that Jesus had brothers and, possibly, sisters) are swept under the carpet because they don't fit into the male-obssessive "eternal virgin" theory. Moreover, just to make sure that we all focus on the girl Mary her husband has been written out of the picture almost entirely.

WOMEN are grown-up people who can be equal partners in relationships where no one party holds power over the other.

GIRLS are children who, because of their immaturity, need nurturing and protecting and sheltering from some of the harsher realities of life.

The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
That's a lot of ranting to get through - but I disagree with this mischaracterisation particularly, where "virginity is the most highly prized quality for women - virgins = 1st class, non-virgins = 2nd class".

The gift of chastity is a highly prized virtue for men and women in whatever state of life. It's a constituent of our life as Christians, and virginity is a part of that.

(re. the whole adelphos/adelphoi thing being used to somehow prove that Christ had siblings... just meh.)
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
But you don't call her "Chaste Mary" you describe her as "Virgin". Its the church that has battered on and on about virginity.

If you look at my earlier post (sandwiched neatly between some of your multiple posts, WTF is up with things this evening?) you will see that I'm not saying that Mary wasn't/isn't special but that in stressing the virginity thing the church has missed the point entirely.

So I'll reiterate:

..."the important thing about Mary is not her virginity, it is her humanity."

And may I remind that it was YOU who posted the original thread linking vaginal delivery, virginity and the virgin Mary - which was why I asked how on earth you thought Christ was born. I'd still like to know - or have I missed yet another Vatican invention that tells the world that Jesus was somehow "borned"???

Moreover I'm not "ranting" - at the head of this thread you said

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I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

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quote:

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Originally posted by L'organist:

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posted by loggats
Seems like the Church's focus on her virginity (and the virginity of women) was itself empowering. She is pure, powerful and has a depth of identity independennt of her relationship with a husband.

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What utter bullshit.

The Church's focus on Mary's virginity, far from being empowering, has been a means of exerting control over women - ALL women.

This obssession with virginity AND motherhood is toxic, which would be bad enough, but its also schizoid because the message it sends out is

• Mary was/is the most acceptable example of womanhood
• she holds that position because she was a virgin and remained a virgin
• qed virginity is the most highly prized quality for women - virgins = 1st class, non-virgins = 2nd class
• but Mary was also a mother - so women must also be mothers
• but to become a mother a woman must have sex which will make her a non-virgin
• moreover sex is dirty and shameful
• so women who are virgins and not mothers are not 1st class women because they are barren
• and women who are mothers have had sex so can't be virgins and so are 2nd class

As Lavinia Byrne said - you know women are in trouble when the pope mentions women and the Virgin Mary in the same sentence. For "pope" substitute "church" and you have the right picture.

What's this "depth of identity" - where are you finding that, pray? The Bible tells us virtually nothing about her - and some of the things that are there (like the fact that Jesus had brothers and, possibly, sisters) are swept under the carpet because they don't fit into the male-obssessive "eternal virgin" theory. Moreover, just to make sure that we all focus on the girl Mary her husband has been written out of the picture almost entirely.

WOMEN are grown-up people who can be equal partners in relationships where no one party holds power over the other.

GIRLS are children who, because of their immaturity, need nurturing and protecting and sheltering from some of the harsher realities of life.

The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
[
In the Mishnah, it is recorded that there were 82 consecrated virgins who wove the veil of the Temple:

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
For Mary it would have been natural and indeed holy to have children with her husband after having Jesus. Having sex is a mitzvot/commandment for Jewish couples.

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Originally posted by L'organist:
WOMEN are grown-up people who can be equal partners in relationships where no one party holds power over the other.

GIRLS are children who, because of their immaturity, need nurturing and protecting and sheltering from some of the harsher realities of life.

The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Ah, the "Immaculate Conception." Rome's latest heresy.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by loggats:

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Are you equating "virgin" with "intact hymen"? Because those aren't the same thing. A virgin can most certainly give birth vaginally and remain virgin - in fact, it's likely that a non-zero number of lesbians have done exactly that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by L'organist:
The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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Are you equating "virgin" with "intact hymen"? Because those aren't the same thing. A virgin can most certainly give birth vaginally and remain virgin - in fact, it's likely that a non-zero number of lesbians have done exactly that.

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While this may be true as a matter of medical fact known today, it's anachronistic thinking. <snip>

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Originally posted by Firenze:
What comes over to me is that if you tell centuries of celibate men that the only woman they can lawfully think about is the Virgin Mary, you get some weird stuff.

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Marriage is honourable among all and the bed undefiled...

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I think this comes down to Mary as a unique creature, unlike any other woman in the world. St Louis de Montfort describes it beautifully (though the translation goes in for a bit of purple prose - try not to have an apoplectic fit if you bother reading this, it's about as Marian as you can get even for a Catholic saint):

"There is not and there will never be, either in God's creation or in His mind, a creature in whom He is so honoured as in the most Blessed Virgin Mary....

Mary is God's garden of Paradise, His own unspeakable world, into which His Son entered to do wonderful things, to tend it and to take His delight in it. He created a world for the wayfarer, that is, the one we are living in. He created a second world - Paradise - for the Blessed. He created a third for Himself, which He named Mary.

She is a world unknown to most mortals here on earth. Even the angels and saints in heaven find her incomprehensible, and are lost in admiration of a God who is so exalted and so far above them, so distant from them, and so enclosed in Mary, His chosen world, that they exclaim: "Holy, holy, holy" unceasingly."

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Originally posted by loggats
She is pure, powerful and has a depth of identity independent of her relationship with a husband.

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1652 "By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."

Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning (he) made them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.

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(From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 7, section 5. Emphasis mine).

And yet, according to Catholic thinking, the "holy family" sets us an example that completely undermines this understanding of marriage. The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary implies that lawful sex is somehow 'dirty' (contrary to Holy Scripture and blaspheming the Creator of sex), that the sexual aspect of God's creative activity is inferior, and that a marriage that God demands should never be consummated is not only normal, but the supreme example of godliness.
 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
Given that the RCC teaches that non-consummation of marriage is grounds for an annulment, a belief in Mary's perpetual virgnity raises all sorts of questions about the RCC's attitude toward the validity of Joseph and Mary's marriage.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
For what it's worth, I do think this is one of those areas where Rome has taken things too far. There are others.

The problem is, once you set up a belief or a hypothesis the temptation is then to go out and look for acid-test proofs ... hence, as Barnabas has reminded us, the story of the post-natal attempt to test that Mary's hymen was intact and the way that the midwife's hand withered in the attempt ...

It's clearly a pious legend concocted to account for something that people felt need to be accounted for.

I would suggest that the Immaculate Conception is an example of the same thing - in that case, though, a projection back before Mary's birth to make it possible for her to be conceived without sin. It's interesting that the Orthodox, who are equally as Marian in their approach as the RCs, don't see the need for that one ... although they do have pious legends about Mary being brought up in the Temple and so on.

Rome tends to over-egg things. The juridical Latin mind has to tie up all loose ends. Hence it concocts ends to tie up where there is no need to.

I'm not sure that EE is on the right track banging on about the sex issue ... I'm sure we could find plenty of RC families and couples with a very wholesome and balanced view of these issues. I think many RCs would concede that their Church's teaching and attitude towards human sexuality hasn't always been as helpful as it might be. That said, one could also point towards some RC teachings and attitudes towards sexuality as providing counter-cultural ballast against hedonism and promiscuity. There's a balance.

Personally, I think the RC view does need adjusting - and I know it's a different issue but clerical marriage would play a part in steadying/normalising their approach - as it has done in other churches.
 

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Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
Actually, I find that quote from St Louis de Montfort rather beautiful. I find Mariology fascinating, on several counts.

However, I reject its excesses, and the way it seems to turn Mary into some kind of super-human. Unfortunately though, Protestantism has reacted too far in the other direction. Mary was an amazing woman, an amazing saint, an amazing disciple. It is sad that so many Protestants ignore her.

So then: when it comes to the miraculous conception of Jesus, I am on the same page as the Catholics and the Orthodox.

But as an evangelical Protestant, I have no difficulty believing that Mary and St. Joseph likely had a perfectly normal Jewish marriage after Jesus was born.

It is NOT disrespecting the Blessed Mother to believe this. I must make that very clear. Neither is it disrespecting her to believe - as I have done practically all my Christian life - that Jesus was born just like any other human baby. That is the wonder and the shock of the Incarnation. Yes, it is shocking. But God becoming Man is shocking.

When it comes to patriarchal attitudes to women, I am grateful to feminism for raising the issues.
 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
I'm not sure that EE is on the right track banging on about the sex issue...

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No, I suppose the concept of virginity (and the claim that Mary could only be 'pure' if a perpetual virgin) has nothing to do with sex!

Sheesh!


 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

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Originally posted by Laurelin
But as an evangelical Protestant, I have no difficulty believing that Mary and St. Joseph likely had a perfectly normal Jewish marriage after Jesus was born.

It is NOT disrespecting the Blessed Mother to believe this. I must make that very clear. Neither is it disrespecting her to believe - as I have done practically all my Christian life - that Jesus was born just like any other human baby. That is the wonder and the shock of the Incarnation. Yes, it is shocking. But God becoming Man is shocking.

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
While this may be true as a matter of medical fact known today, it's anachronistic thinking.

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You asked for views and I've given you mine. If you don't like them too bad - you did ask.

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Originally posted by L'organist:
... And it misses the point entirely: the important thing about Mary is not her virginity, it is her humanity.

The description of her in the gospels as "virgin" is not to impress upon us her purity, it is to stress her unimportance - she was too young to wield any power on her own (don't forget, by being responsible for handing on the religion women are powerful in Judaism).

The Church's subsequent preoccupation with her "virginity" has missed the point entirely - and later mad additions, such as the assumption, have only added another layer of unnecessary bilge.

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Sorry. No. The importance of Mary's virginity is that Jesus is both Son of God and Son of Man. So Mary is his mother and his father is God, not Joseph and not some other mystery person. That is why it matters that she was a virgin at the time of the Annunciation, and up to the moment of Jesus's birth. It is also why it is a matter of pointless speculation and no theological significance whether Jesus's delivery tore her hymen or not.

It is also why it is a matter of legitimate debate, but probably not that important, whether Jesus's brothers and sisters were also children of Mary, children of a previous wife of Joseph's or some other relative. An issue that follows from this, is whether it means 'James the brother of the Lord' must have been younger or quite a bit older than Jesus and how this affects chronology in the early church.

I've never heard the suggestion that Jesus's actual birth was in some way unnatural "something like 'light passing through a glass.'" That sounds, if anything, more like someone trying to explain the Holy Spirit's overshadowing and Jesus's conception. I have heard it argued that because it was the reversing of the curse of Eve, the delivery must have been relatively painless. However, I do not know, and I do not really think anyone else can legitimately claim to.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Fair call, EE, what I meant, of course, was that we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that all Catholics must necessarily have hang-ups about sex on account of RC teaching of the Perpetual Virginity of the BVM.

I didn't express myself very well.

What I objected to was your proof-texting from Hebrews about the marriage bed being pure when the RC Church would be very aware of that verse and its implications and have their own way/s of working that out in practice.

I've done the evangelical proof-texting with Catholics before now and got the well-deserved response of 'Goodness me, as if we'd never noticed that before ...'

It's the clerical celibacy thing. I've beaten RCs over the head before now about Peter being married and some of the 'other apostles' being married as if somehow they'd managed to mysteriously overlook that in their Bibles for the last millenium and a half or whatever. Of course they're aware of these things.

I think there is an element of 'projection' going on here - these guys stress virginity, they must have a hang up about sex ...

Sure, there's neo-platonism in there and a lot else besides and I'm sure there's been a huge amount of collateral damage down the years as a result of that.

Even as a Protestant, though, I could accept the traditional view that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ and that the 'brethren' mentioned were male cousins or other close relatives or even children from a previous marriage that Joseph may have had - but we don't know and can never know. All we have are the scriptures and tradition/Tradition to go on.

It doesn't affect things one way or another, as far as I can see, whether Mary and Joseph had a 'normal' marriage after that - although early accounts would suggest otherwise - or whether they didn't. It certainly raises a few questions if they didn't, such as the consummation thing that Kaplan's mentioned, but I don't see it as a deal-breaker either way.

Nor do I see the need for mysterious 'passing as light through glass' speculation as this seems to underplay the Incarnation rather than support it ... if we're going to have a literal Incarnation then surely we're going to have a literal birth along a literal birth canal. I don't see why we have to have speculation about a miraculous passage along the birth canal.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
But Barnabus, the subject of the discussion has been brought by a modern person who does know that a woman may have a broken hymen without having had intercourse. Such a woman is still a virgin. The Incarnation is enough of a miracle without clinging to the belief in a miraculously intact hymen. Having a hymen after the birth of Jesus wouldn't make Mary any more a virgin than she already was.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
What I objected to was your proof-texting from Hebrews about the marriage bed being pure when the RC Church would be very aware of that verse and its implications and have their own way/s of working that out in practice.

I've done the evangelical proof-texting with Catholics before now and got the well-deserved response of 'Goodness me, as if we'd never noticed that before ...'

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I have been working with woman in Brazilian favelas for a long time, and my experience in talking with them is that these images of Mary aren't helpful.

I mean, this should be something they could relate to. The Good News came to the world, not through a queen in a fancy palace, but through an ordinary woman. Normally, this should stimulate us to listen to ordinary women and take them seriously.

But instead, Mary was put on a pedestal that these women will never attain, and is being used as rod to measure them against and if necessary to hit them with. By men. The virgin birth and especially the bullshit that follows after this, is a big part of this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So you're suggesting that Mary would be impure if she had sex with her husband?

Again, how does that cohere with Hebrews 13:4?

It's pretty obvious that the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary has exposed a deep contradiction at the heart of Catholic theology. Procreation (therefore sex) is encouraged in marriage:

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats
I think this comes down to Mary as a unique creature, unlike any other woman in the world.

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quote:

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Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.”

But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?” And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”

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quote:

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loggats: Time out. This isn't the Hell board where being vile is some kind of virtue, and I don't think you slagging off my beliefs about Our Lady's perpetual virginity is acceptable - especially on a board where courtesy is a guideline.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Here goes (I don't interact with protestants about matters of faith very often, so I'm really not used to this kind of thing - it is fun though, but please bear with me).

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No worries.

quote:

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First off, Jesus Christ himself elevated marriage from a natural good to a supernatural source of grace in the Sacrament of holy Matrimony.

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Where does Jesus do this, though? The creation ordinance is already in place, which Jesus upholds and affirms. Marriage is already ordained by God the Father: I just don't see our Lord doing something special with it that God hasn't already done. But then I would say that, because of my particular theological bias. Protestants believe in two sacraments (baptism and Communion), not seven.

quote:

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If you're approaching this from a place where Mary is just like any other woman, you're ignoring her pivotal role in salvation history.

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Well, this is a fundamental difference between the Catholic view and the Protestant one. Ironically, I do think we Prots do tend to ignore her (in an over-reaction) and I think that's a crying shame. But we do see her as an amazing example of obedience to the will of God, and we do recognise that her 'yes' to God is pretty crucial in His purposes.

But Scripture itself is fairly restrained in how it describes Mary. A woman full of faith, yes absolutely. St Luke's portrayal of her is particularly heart-warming. St John's portrayal of her at the wedding in Cana tickles me, she is such a Jewish mama (that quiet order to the servants, "do what my boy tells you!" ) Her faith, integrity and wonderful-ness as a mother come across in spades. And as a disciple: she is there on the Day of Pentecost. But I don't see her elevated above other saintly folk in the New Testament. That is not to deny her role or her importance. I think we should make more of that, indeed celebrate Mary more, but from my Protestant perspective, avoiding some of the pitfalls of Mariolatry.

I have no time, for example, for portrayals of Mary that deny her Jewishness.
 

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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
I don't know if this had occurred to me previously, but does the notion of a post-partum intact hymen also represent a conflation of the notion of Mary's freedom from the stain of original sin (i.e. her immaculate conception)with the notion that the pains of childbirth are divine punishment for the disobedience of Adam and Eve, hence a direct result of original sin (in the Augustinian theology of the Western Church)? Thus, was the subtext or perhaps the explicit thinking that, being free from original sin, Mary had a completely easy and painless parturition, with the baby simply passing effortlessly through her birth canal and somehow not disrupting any anatomy or causing any pain?

As others have said, a theory of a post-partum intact hymen is pushing things quite too far in any case. It is theologically unnecessary and utterly anti-empirical (apart from other objections I have to the whole notion, which I shan't go into here).
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Definitely worth a Hostly comment.

loggats

In Purgatory the offence is personal attack. Folks can say that argument or that theological opinion is crazy, stupid, etc. That's allowable.

They can't say you are crazy, stupid etc. That's the difference spelled out in Purg Guideline 1 and Commandments 3-4.

quote:

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Purg Guideline 1. No personal attacks

We all have different opinions about weighty matters, some strongly held. Disagree with the view, not the person. The statement, "View X is stupid," is acceptable. The statement, "Person X is stupid," is not.

Commandments 3 and 4

3. Attack the issue, not the person

Name-calling and personal insults are only allowed in Hell. Attacks outside of Hell are grounds for suspension or banning.

4. If you must get personal, take it to Hell

If you get into a personality conflict with other shipmates, you have two simple choices: end the argument or take it to Hell.

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quote:

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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras: Thus, was the subtext or perhaps the explicit thinking that, being free from original sin, Mary had a completely easy and painless parturition, with the baby simply passing effortlessly through her birth canal and somehow not disrupting any anatomy or causing any pain?

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats
I think this comes down to Mary as a unique creature, unlike any other woman in the world.

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I think that if any woman had any suspicion that there was something deeply wrong and disturbing about the Catholic Church's exaltation of Mary, then this comment confirms all those fears.

The whole friggin' point of the incarnation was that Mary was NOT a unique creature but was an ordinary woman, just like any other woman.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
As others have said, a theory of a post-partum intact hymen is pushing things quite too far in any case. It is theologically unnecessary and utterly anti-empirical (apart from other objections I have to the whole notion, which I shan't go into here).

---

It is also completely irrelevant to the shining quality of Mary's faith!

Yes, she is a saint. She rocks.

[In response to Orfeo's post ... no, there is no Biblical evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Not that Jesus didn't love prostitutes, but she wasn't one.]
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
But to make her herself a 'unique creature', rather than a person involved in unique events, is really pushing claims excessively.

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Gabriel didn't seem to think so.

The redemption of mankind was dependent upon the consent of the Virgin Mary, and her action was essential to God's design. The events were unique, but so is the woman.

[ 01. May 2013, 13:14: Message edited by: loggats ]
 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus
I'm not Catholic, but AIUI the Patristic position was always that, though procreative sex within a marriage is a Good Thing, it is always second-best to perpetual virginity. This has a fairly clear Scriptural backing in 1 Corinthians 7.

On this view, though it might be somewhat dubious to say Mary would become 'impure' through sexual intercourse, she would have gone from a higher to a lower state, so to speak.

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quote:

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But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world—how he may please his wife. There is a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. And this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.

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quote:

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Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment.

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quote:

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For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.

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quote:

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Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband.

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quote:

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But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.

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quote:

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Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy.

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quote:

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But she is happier if she remains as she is, according to my judgment—and I think I also have the Spirit of God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
But to make her herself a 'unique creature', rather than a person involved in unique events, is really pushing claims excessively.

---

Gabriel didn't seem to think so.

The redemption of mankind was dependent upon the consent of the Virgin Mary, and her action was essential to God's design. The events were unique, but so is the woman.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats
The redemption of mankind was dependent upon the consent of the Virgin Mary, and her action was essential to God's design. The events were unique, but so is the woman.

---

How does the giving of consent turn someone into a "unique creature"??

By the way... I notice that you have ignored the point I raised about Jesus being the "Son of Man" (huios tou anthropou). Clearly Mary must have been an "anthropos", because Jesus is immediately referring to her.

So therefore if Mary is a "unique creature" then "anthropos" has an ambiguous meaning, does it not? In fact, its meaning is rather confused and even misleading when used by Jesus, because we are not really sure what He is the Son of?

But Jesus cannot be deceitful, so that theory must be wrong.

Do please explain, because Catholic theology is becoming increasingly bewildering to me...

[ 01. May 2013, 13:39: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
But to make her herself a 'unique creature', rather than a person involved in unique events, is really pushing claims excessively.

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Gabriel didn't seem to think so.

The redemption of mankind was dependent upon the consent of the Virgin Mary, and her action was essential to God's design. The events were unique, but so is the woman.

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Gabriel?

Am I understand you're taking "most highly favoured lady" to mean "I've done a complete survey across all of time and space, and you're the best lady"??

Nope. Most highly favoured doesn't mean the same as most deserving of favour.

And that's even if you can find a word like 'most' in a translation. I can't in the NIV, the one I have to hand. It says highly favoured, and no whom God's favour rests. But that's still more about God's actions, not a proclamation that Mary is so extraordinarily super-duper special as to make some kind of unique being.

EDIT: Also, there is no textual basis for assuming that Mary was even the first girl that Gabriel visited. Think about that for a minute, as mindblowing as it is.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Here goes (I don't interact with protestants about matters of faith very often, so I'm really not used to this kind of thing - it is fun though, but please bear with me).

Hebrews 13,4 "May marriage be honorable in every way, and may the marriage bed be immaculate. For God will judge fornicators and adulterers."

First off, Jesus Christ himself elevated marriage from a natural good to a supernatural source of grace in the Sacrament of holy Matrimony. So whatever marital relationship Mary and Joseph had it necessarily predated the sacrament instituted by Christ. Under the Roman law they were married (nuptias non concubitus, sed consensus facit - no need for intimate relations there) though I suppose a Roman perspective doesn't do much halachically.

Orthodox Christians seem to maintain that Joseph and Mary were betrothed (I think they call St Joseph 'the Betrothed') rather than explicitly married and this would give a different shade to the matter. And though Genesis is quite clear about marriage and the making of one flesh, and the Catholic Church echoes this strongly, applying all of these things to the relationship between Joseph and Mary is just missing the point entirely.

Their relationship was unique because Mary is unique. There never was and never will be another human being like her. Through her fiat, her willingness to submit herself fully to the will of God, Jesus Christ took the substance of His sacred humanity from her. It was in this humanity that He preached, worked miracles, suffered, was crucified, died for our sins and purchased our salvation. If you're approaching this from a place where Mary is just like any other woman, you're ignoring her pivotal role in salvation history.

Returning to the verse you quoted... ultimately, it seems to be telling us something important about marital chastity where fornication can refer to a broad range of immoral sexual acts - it exhorts a couple to keep the marriage bed immaculate.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I have to say that Aquinas quote contains some highly questionable logic. It jumps from one character of Jesus to another, and decides that because the 2nd characteristic is shared with Mary, Mary must also have lots of the 1st characteristic.

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quote:

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Originally posted by L'organist:
AO / Ricardus / mousethief

As I addressed loggats earlier

quote:

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You asked for views and I've given you mine. If you don't like them too bad - you did ask.

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He didn't ask whether we agreed with him or each other, just sought our views.

He has given his view, I've given him mine: you may not agree - I'm relaxed about that.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I have to say that Aquinas quote contains some highly questionable logic. It jumps from one character of Jesus to another, and decides that because the 2nd characteristic is shared with Mary, Mary must also have lots of the 1st characteristic.

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Are you disagreeing that Jesus' humanity was derived from Mary? She gave birth to the Person of Christ, true God and true Man.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I have to say that Aquinas quote contains some highly questionable logic. It jumps from one character of Jesus to another, and decides that because the 2nd characteristic is shared with Mary, Mary must also have lots of the 1st characteristic.

---

Are you disagreeing that Jesus' humanity was derived from Mary? She gave birth to the Person of Christ, true God and true Man.

---

I'd say the area of disagreement is not whether Jesus' humanity was derived from Mary, but that her giving birth to Jesus makes Mary any way divine.

I'd have thought that being known as Jesus' mum would be enough kudos without all the extra spuriously-derived titles.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
No one thinks that Sister Mary Jane who takes a vow of celibacy undermines marriage, so to me, Mary's perpetual virginity is no different.

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Except that no-one holds Sister Mary Jane up as the Most Perfect Example Of Humanity Whom We Should All Aspire To Emulate.
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Too late now, of course, but if there had been healthier and better informed attitudes towards sex and women back in the day, there wouldn't've been a 'need' for an ever-virgin concept. But when your starting point is even married sex is sinful if pleasurable, women are failed men, and new-born babies are conceived in 'sin', and are therefore sinful themselves - it's got to be all downhill after that, hasn't it.

We would've just been able to marvel - and revel in - how an obedient, but in many ways ordinary, girl like Mary said 'yes' to God, and how amazing was the result. We would be reverencing real mother-hood; the dangers of labour, the pain of delivery, stretch-marks, saggy tits and ruined figures. Not unbroken hymens.

We'd be marvelling at the miracle of God doing incredible things by working with his own creation - people like us - instead of gazing upward at the unreachable sanctity of a super-human like the perpetually virgin Mary.

It's funny. The whole point of God incarnate, was to bring God down to us, so we would know he is with us, and in that way we can be with him. And the Church responds by working for centuries to elevate back up into the heavens - not Christ - but a thoroughly human person to a position completely unreachable morally, spiritually and physically. Even to the point that in some people's ideas Mary is herself the guarantor of salvation. Unbelievable.
 

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Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on :
 

 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I can understand why RCs and the Orthodox too, but without taking it as far, would want to regard Mary as the Most Perfect Example Of Humanity Whom We Should All Aspire To Emulate.

I really don't have a problem with that at all.

Neither do I have a problem with the admittedly over-stated case I once saw put by a very Anglo-Catholic South-walian cleric that unless we are 'good Marians', we can run the risk of becoming 'good Arians.'

The whole point about the veneration of Mary, of titles like 'Theotokos' and so on is a Christological one, of course. Unfortunately, it seems to me, it rather breaks free from that in some aspects of popular devotion and enters Mariolatry territory rather than Mariology territory.

Even the Orthodox would baulk at terms like 'Co-Redemptrix' and I understand that there are those in the RC Church who would push for that to be a title attributed to her ... but equally that there are elements which would resist it.

'Hyperdulia' can extend to hyperbole-ia (as it were) or even hyper-peculiar ...

The effect on the ground bothers me, and I think Le Roc's comment from the favellas of Brazil that women in those settings are effectively disenfranchised by it by being presented by some kind of superhuman model is something that should give us all pause.

Conversely, of course, some would argue that the concept of the divinity of Christ somehow disenfranchises us all - rather than exalts our humanity - but I would obviously contend that this is a misunderstanding of the concept.

Equally, I can see how a 'high' Marian understanding could have the opposite effect to that which Anselmina so graphically and trenchantly describes - ie. to empower and liberate women rather than to oppress and tread them down.

There are some representations of Mary in iconography that DO, it seems to me, help in that respect. But much popular RC iconography and devotion certainly appears to do the opposite.

Give me the statue of Mary as a Manchester mill-girl that is mounted, movingly (not literally, the eyes don't swivel ...) outside Manchester Cathedral any day of the week rather than the sickly popular depictions of Mary with crowns and so on and so forth.

At least Orthodox iconography, on the whole, shows taste and restraint.

Let the RCs, the Orthodox and some Anglo-Catholics hold to the Perpetual Virginity if they wish. Just so long as they don't use it to oppress women and tread them down.

Mousethief is rightly outraged by any suggestion that women are only made 'complete' in relation to men and through sexual intercourse. We do well to heed that too. But at the same time let's not see doctrines and dogmas that were developed to defend the Divinity of Christ used to demean women created in the image of God.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Anselmina:
Too late now, of course, but if there had been healthier and better informed attitudes towards sex and women back in the day, there wouldn't've been a 'need' for an ever-virgin concept.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina
Too late now, of course, but if there had been healthier and better informed attitudes towards sex and women back in the day, there wouldn't've been a 'need' for an ever-virgin concept. But when your starting point is even married sex is sinful if pleasurable, women are failed men, and new-born babies are conceived in 'sin', and are therefore sinful themselves - it's got to be all downhill after that, hasn't it.

We would've just been able to marvel - and revel in - how an obedient, but in many ways ordinary, girl like Mary said 'yes' to God, and how amazing was the result. We would be reverencing real mother-hood; the dangers of labour, the pain of delivery, stretch-marks, saggy tits and ruined figures. Not unbroken hymens.

We'd be marvelling at the miracle of God doing incredible things by working with his own creation - people like us - instead of gazing upward at the unreachable sanctity of a super-human like the perpetually virgin Mary.

It's funny. The whole point of God incarnate, was to bring God down to us, so we would know he is with us, and in that way we can be with him. And the Church responds by working for centuries to elevate back up into the heavens - not Christ - but a thoroughly human person to a position completely unreachable morally, spiritually and physically. Even to the point that in some people's ideas Mary is herself the guarantor of salvation. Unbelievable.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin[...]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by L'organist:
The mad insistence that Mary is "ever Virgin" means she is always a girl - in other words she never grows up. By "elevating" Mary you invented Petra Pan almost 2 millennia before Barrie was born.

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That seems to be obviously false unless you also think that the celibate clergy, including the College of Cardinals and the Pope, are always 'boys' not men by virtue of supposedly being virgins.

(I have no idea how many of these individuals are actually virgins and have no wish to know, but if they had always been faithful to Catholic teaching then they would be.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
I'm not sure that EE is on the right track banging on about the sex issue...

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No, I suppose the concept of virginity (and the claim that Mary could only be 'pure' if a perpetual virgin) has nothing to do with sex!

Sheesh!

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

The deep-seated contempt for all that the incarnation implies is typical of neo-Platonism, and its theological offshoots.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The importance of Mary's virginity is that Jesus is both Son of God and Son of Man. So Mary is his mother and his father is God, not Joseph and not some other mystery person.

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quote:

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this posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I have to say that Aquinas quote contains some highly questionable logic. It jumps from one character of Jesus to another, and decides that because the 2nd characteristic is shared with Mary, Mary must also have lots of the 1st characteristic.

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Are you disagreeing that Jesus' humanity was derived from Mary? She gave birth to the Person of Christ, true God and true Man.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin[...]

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Does this piece of obvious nonsense in the OP logically invalidate the whole thread so far?

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
If the traditional Christian teaching about the vigin birth is true, Jesus has one biological parent, not two. Mary and nobody else.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Mousethief hit the nail on the head. The rest is nicely written, but it's defending a position that the Church doesn't undermine anyway. It just seems weird that, in order to find Mary acceptable, you've got to make her just like you - otherwise the standard expected of us by God is too high.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The importance of Mary's virginity is that Jesus is both Son of God and Son of Man. So Mary is his mother and his father is God, not Joseph and not some other mystery person.

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No, not at all. Absolutely not. No Christian is claiming that God the Father is in any sense the biological father of Jesus. There are no imaginary little divine sperm in the story floating around looking for an egg to fertilise. No-one is saying that God has genitals. Not unless you think Mormonism is orthodox Christianity perhaps.
...
If the traditional Christian teaching about the vigin birth is true, Jesus has one biological parent, not two. Mary and nobody else.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
First off, Jesus Christ himself elevated marriage from a natural good to a supernatural source of grace...

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quote:

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...in the Sacrament of holy Matrimony.

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quote:

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Under the Roman law they were married (nuptias non concubitus, sed consensus facit - no need for intimate relations there)

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quote:

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Returning to the verse you quoted... ultimately, it seems to be telling us something important about marital chastity where fornication can refer to a broad range of immoral sexual acts...

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Maybe it does, but how do we know what those immoral sexual acts are? Or what the moral ones are? Are the things we consider immoral here and now the same as the ones Joseph and Mary would have thought immoral? And if they have changed, do we follow our culture's rules or try to work out what the biblical authors might have meant? And if that, then how?
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Must EVERY aspect of Mary be aspire-to-able? That way madness lies. Every saint we might wish to emulate potentially has things we can never manage. The church doesn't hold up saints because they are perfect, or perfectly emulatable; only our Lord is perfect, and the wish for perfect emulatability is unfounded.

Doc Tor: I'm not sure which side you're coming down on (as regards the previous paragraph), but if you agree with me, then please accept this as springboarding off your comment rather than picking nits. (If on the other hand you're on the opposite side from me, this isn't picking nits, it's a broadside. )
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Mousethief hit the nail on the head. The rest is nicely written, but it's defending a position that the Church doesn't undermine anyway. It just seems weird that, in order to find Mary acceptable, you've got to make her just like you - otherwise the standard expected of us by God is too high.

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The point of the lives of the saints is that they all have qualities that we can aspire to. The qualities of Mary that we can aspire to are faithfulness, obedience, nurturing, prayer. Women can aspire to her model of motherhood, but not her immaculate conception nor her ever-virginity. She is not, literally, a plaster saint whose virtues are so firmly in the realm of the supernatural that they are unobtainable either here or in Heaven.

So in that respect, yes: Mary is one of us. It's not weird. It's giving her honour. It's calling her blessed. It's the other stuff that's weird.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin[...]

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Does this piece of obvious nonsense in the OP logically invalidate the whole thread so far?

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Women giving birth while being virgins doesn't ever happen.
Except once in the history of humankind.
But apparently that isn't special enough for some people.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin[...]

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Does this piece of obvious nonsense in the OP logically invalidate the whole thread so far?

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Women giving birth while being virgins doesn't ever happen.
Except once in the history of humankind.
But apparently that isn't special enough for some people.

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According to your OP it wasn't special enough for the people who taught you your catechism because you seemed to be saying that they thought that giving birth to Jesus would have caused cause Mary to stop being a virgin, and so he must have been teleported out of her in some magical way. That idea is clearly nonsense as you now seem to agree.

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quote:

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loggats: It just seems weird that, in order to find Mary acceptable, you've got to make her just like you - otherwise the standard expected of us by God is too high.

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quote:

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Women giving birth while being virgins doesn't ever happen.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Must EVERY aspect of Mary be aspire-to-able? That way madness lies. Every saint we might wish to emulate potentially has things we can never manage. The church doesn't hold up saints because they are perfect, or perfectly emulatable; only our Lord is perfect, and the wish for perfect emulatability is unfounded.

Doc Tor: I'm not sure which side you're coming down on (as regards the previous paragraph), but if you agree with me, then please accept this as springboarding off your comment rather than picking nits. (If on the other hand you're on the opposite side from me, this isn't picking nits, it's a broadside. )

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As a good Anglican, I am coming down firmly and unequivocally in the middle.

Clearly, no one is perfect. And there are aspects of the saints (take George as a non-contentious example) that are unemulatable in a strict sense.

However, the lives of the saints are not a series of Marvel comics. Or rather, if they are, it's Spiderman's "with great power comes great responsibility" that inspires us to be greater than ourselves, not the fact he can shoot webs from his wrists.

Do I believe Mary was immaculately conceived? No. Do I believe her to be ever-virgin? No. Do I believe her to be (as some would maintain) co-redemptrix? No. But to my mind, those elements detract from the power of the extraordinary story of an obedient young Jewish woman in first century Palestine, who was asked by God to bring the Saviour into the world, with all the associated trauma and fear that childbirth brought.

The more she is 'not like us', the less we can identify with her. Which is kind of the point of the incarnation, too.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
loggats:

quote:

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Women giving birth while being virgins doesn't ever happen.

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In these days of artificial insemination, that might be an unwarranted assumption.

But in terms of miracles, I agree that the BVM has it locked up.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anselmina:
Too late now, of course, but if there had been healthier and better informed attitudes towards sex and women back in the day, there wouldn't've been a 'need' for an ever-virgin concept.

---

This is of course Bulverism. You have no evidence that the concept arose because there was a "need," let alone that the "need" was based on unhealthy attitudes towards sex.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
loggats:

quote:

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Women giving birth while being virgins doesn't ever happen.

---

In these days of artificial insemination, that might be an unwarranted assumption.

But in terms of miracles, I agree that the BVM has it locked up.

---

Indeed, this actually has happened:

14yo girl forced to get pregnant by donor semen

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As the first Christian (ergo Catholic), the BVM wouldn't have had anything to do with artificial insemination thank you very much.



 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats
It just seems weird that, in order to find Mary acceptable, you've got to make her just like you - otherwise the standard expected of us by God is too high.

---

quote:

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However I don't think that by denying Mary's perpetual virginity, immaculate conception and unique role in relation to the Trinity we get any closer to the truth of what it means to express complete obedience to the will of God.

---

quote:

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We come to know her Son a lot more authentically if we make the effort to know her.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats
It just seems weird that, in order to find Mary acceptable, you've got to make her just like you - otherwise the standard expected of us by God is too high.

---

I really don't understand what you are getting at here. In order to find Mary acceptable, we've got to make her into a normal human being?

Like I've said twice now (with no response from you), Jesus referred to Himself as "the Son of Man" (ho huios tou anthropou). Anthropos means "human being", therefore Mary was fully human, no more, no less. Otherwise, she would not have been an "anthropos".

quote:

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However I don't think that by denying Mary's perpetual virginity, immaculate conception and unique role in relation to the Trinity we get any closer to the truth of what it means to express complete obedience to the will of God.

---

But we don't get any closer to the truth of what it means to express complete obedience to the will of God by affirming Mary's perpetual virginity, immaculate conception and unique role in relation to the Trinity (whatever that might be).

For example, the flagrantly discriminatory immaculate conception (if God can just protect Mary from the influence of original sin by fiat of authority, then why not simply do it for everyone?) has nothing to do with expressing complete obedience to God, and if it has, all it demonstrates is that Mary has an unfair advantage over everyone else, and thus she is a complete irrelevance, as far as our own Christian lives are concerned. (I speak as someone who doesn't believe in original sin anyway - at least in the way it has been traditionally formulated).

quote:

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We come to know her Son a lot more authentically if we make the effort to know her.

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Please explain.

(Especially taking into account the lack of biblical support for such an idea).

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quote:

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loggats: I don't know why, unless she's your (pl.) definition of "ordinary", Our Lady would be unworthy as a role model.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
ISTM that Mary's perpetual virginity is rather akin to other claims made about her, e.g. the Immaculate Conception, Queen of Heaven, Co-redemptrix with Christ. It is difficult to avoid the perception that she has effectively been elevated to the status of goddess, in some quarters....even if that title is carefully avoided.

I think the eminent theologian known as 'The Apostle' (from the film Dogma) pretty-much sums up my view of her perpetual virginity: "The nature of God and the virgin birth - those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down - well, that's just plain gullibility!"

---

quote:

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Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
ISTM that Mary's perpetual virginity is rather akin to other claims made about her, e.g. the Immaculate Conception, Queen of Heaven, Co-redemptrix with Christ. It is difficult to avoid the perception that she has effectively been elevated to the status of goddess, in some quarters....even if that title is carefully avoided.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats
Nobody's saying Mary wasn't fully human.

Sola Scriptura is a heresy.

Happy Feast of St Joseph the Worker!

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quote:

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Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.”

But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?” And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
Suppose that all of us wanted to learn to do the high jump. Some of us can jump 2 feet high, others perhaps 3 or 4.

Enter Mary. A couple of men decide that she had rocket-powered turbo shoes, and with them easily jumped 30 feet. Then they say to all women: see, you're failing because you can't jump as high as her.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I have sexual standards. I may put them on a different height than the RCC does, but I believe it is important to have them. It isn't that anything goes.

My problem with the RCC picture of the BVM isn't that it sets standards (although I disagree on where it puts them), it's that it presents us with a role model of someone who by their definition didn't have to struggle to attain those standards, and uses this as a criterium to judge women by.

I picture a woman from a Brazilian favela. She ran away from her first man because he abused her. Her second man just left her. She has children with both of them, and she is worried that her daughter will fall into the hands of a violent guy in the favela. There are literally millions of women like this in Latin America.

Now, suppose a Catholic priest would go to her and say "why can't you be more like Mary?" (the Catholic priests I personally know in Brazil wouldn't do that), she could rightly spit in his face: "Well, it was easy for immaculate, whole-hymen her! Let her start by suffering birth pains for a while, then maybe we could talk."

I would wholeheartedly agree with her.

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quote:

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mousethief: 2. Since when has the Catholic Church ever held up perpetual virginity as a requirement for all women?

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quote:

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loggats: She watched her only Son humiliated and tortured, hung on a Cross and left to die.

Our Lady was no stranger to pain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with those traditions dear to their heart defend them, and label contrary ideas as Bulverism or some other heretical moniker.

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quote:

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loggats: By your logic, Christ is the worst role model going.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

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loggats: By your logic, Christ is the worst role model going.

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No, because I believe that He was without sin, but He actually had to struggle for it. That's what the story of His temptation tells me. It didn't come magically by itself.

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quote:

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Cara: She had to accept a possible future as a pregnant girl alone, in disgrace.

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quote:

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Cara: I am a bit surprised about the attitude you report among these women in the favelas, as I thought that traditionally, in poor countries--rural Italy, Spain, etc--Mary has been especially dear to women--a sort of sister/mother figure who could understand them, and bring some femininity to place alongside Jesus and God the Father...

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quote:

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loggats: We are taught that Mary had a consistent desire to choose a holy and pure life. She had free will and exercised it - the Church doesn't teach that Mary was some kind of robot who could only do good.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anselmina:
Too late now, of course, but if there had been healthier and better informed attitudes towards sex and women back in the day, there wouldn't've been a 'need' for an ever-virgin concept.

---

This is of course Bulverism. You have no evidence that the concept arose because there was a "need," let alone that the "need" was based on unhealthy attitudes towards sex.

---

Well, I'll have to google Bulverism, so thanks for the new word, Mousethief!

But I'd say it was pretty obvious that our early Church Fathers had a rather prejudiced view about sex and women, really from the get-go. I'm not blaming them. Those were the times that were in it. But these prejudices most definitely influenced developing and evolving issues in Church life. Such as eg, sex, procreation obviously trumping carnal pleasure even between husband and wife. The Church, for centuries, promoted sexual relations as nothing better than a necessary evil to produce children. Now, I would call that 'unhealthy'. Of its time, arguably, but definitely unhealthy. And even unnatural.

And once you get into the groove of how nasty all that sex business is, even in legitimate contexts, and then take into the account the old saw - that it's the woman's fault for tempting a bloke - it's only a matter of time before someone has to take on the role as the antithesis of the typical sinful woman, through whom the whole world originally fell, and by whose wiles the world continues to be damned. A second Adam to the fight, wasn't enough. Eve had to be cleaned up, too.

I think Mary's an incredible woman. I think her story is unique, and her experience is unique - clearly, it must be. She wasn't ordinary in her choices, her obedience. But she was utterly human in her extraordinariness, including in her openness to the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, if we deny that Mary's starting off point was the same as most other people's - to an ordinary human extent - we're denying her the credit for her incredible submission to God.

I have no wish to make Mary 'like the rest of us' either. Quite the opposite; when she decided to give to God what he requested, by her own words and actions she became worthy of exaltation. The post-mortem makeover given her by the Church, into some kind of immutable plaster-cast SuperVirgin just seems, at best, unnecessary, and the result of simply not permitting her to be what she was: a woman, albeit one stonking great mensch of a woman.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

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mousethief: One of our hymns about Mary has her saying to Gabriel, "How can this be, since I have not known pleasure?"

Thus recognizing that sex is fun, and that Mary would have known this. Just sayin'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats
Honestly (not to my credit at all) I find your posts a little obnoxious and your general attitude difficult to get a handle on.

Engaging with you would probably be very interesting, but having aggressive conversations with somebody who obviously doesn't much care for a thing I have to say (except to cleverly go "aha! this is why you're completely wrong") isn't my idea of a good time.

---

I apologise, loggats.

I've been doing the hell-purgatory two-step and I seem to have got the choreography wrong.

Obviously I stand by the theological content of my comments here, but I acknowledge that my tone has been a bit aggressive (although I do think it's good to have strong feelings about these subjects, because they matter.)

You may be interested to know that I went through a stage of having a great interest in Mariology - in fact, it became almost an obsession. I bought a couple of books on the subject:

The Mother of the Saviour and our Interior Life - Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P

All Generations Will Call Me Blessed - Jim McManus C.Ss.R.

The first one is a bit dense, to say the least, but the other one is more readable. Perhaps I'll share a few things from them in due course.

All the best,

Al
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

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mousethief: I appreciate what you are saying, Anselmina, but you're still Bulverizing. You're saying, "The church had such-and-such characteristics. This belief is in keeping with those charcteristics. Therefore the reason they put forth this belief is because of those characteristics." It's psychologizing away the belief, which is Bulverism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats
Honestly (not to my credit at all) I find your posts a little obnoxious and your general attitude difficult to get a handle on.

Engaging with you would probably be very interesting, but having aggressive conversations with somebody who obviously doesn't much care for a thing I have to say (except to cleverly go "aha! this is why you're completely wrong") isn't my idea of a good time.

---

I apologise, loggats.

I've been doing the hell-purgatory two-step and I seem to have got the choreography wrong.

Obviously I stand by the theological content of my comments here, but I acknowledge that my tone has been a bit aggressive (although I do think it's good to have strong feelings about these subjects, because they matter.)

You may be interested to know that I went through a stage of having a great interest in Mariology - in fact, it became almost an obsession. I bought a couple of books on the subject:

The Mother of the Saviour and our Interior Life - Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P

All Generations Will Call Me Blessed - Jim McManus C.Ss.R.

The first one is a bit dense, to say the least, but the other one is more readable. Perhaps I'll share a few things from them in due course.

All the best,

Al

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

---

mousethief: I appreciate what you are saying, Anselmina, but you're still Bulverizing. You're saying, "The church had such-and-such characteristics. This belief is in keeping with those charcteristics. Therefore the reason they put forth this belief is because of those characteristics." It's psychologizing away the belief, which is Bulverism.

---

Suppose there is a church in which all preachers want to drive a Mercedes. Lo and behold, in the faith statements of that church there is one that says "Every preacher is entitled to a Mercedes."

Of course, logically it is possible that this faith statement was divinely inspired and has nothing to do with the preachers' wish. But wouldn't you at least have a suspicion that these characteristics had something to do with it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with those traditions dear to their heart defend them, and label contrary ideas as Bulverism or some other heretical moniker.

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It might do you well to learn the names of the various informal logical fallacies, so that when somebody names one, you don't think they're naming a heresy. Saving face and all that.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is interesting to read examples of coy reluctance to countenance any discussion of Mary's hymen, given the many centuries of veneration of the Holy Prepuce, including Christ's slipping it onto the finger of Catherine of Siena at her mystical marriage to him.

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Ew.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
EE has shamed me into an apology too. I've been rather aggressive in my attitude towards him.



Meanwhile, Catherine of Siena? Yes ... I don't know much about her but what little I know makes me feel uncomfortable. I only found out the other day that she is a 'Doctor of the Church'.

I know the Orthodox feel uncomfortable about her too ... but then some of them feel uncomfortable about St Francis of Assisi whilst others wish he was one of theirs ...
 

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Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :
 
I saw this and thought of this thread: Vaginal corona Myths surrounding virginity

Never heard the phrase corona used in this context before.
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is interesting to read examples of coy reluctance to countenance any discussion of Mary's hymen, given the many centuries of veneration of the Holy Prepuce, including Christ's slipping it onto the finger of Catherine of Siena at her mystical marriage to him.

---

quote:

---

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son! Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.

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quote:

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Jesus entrusts his beloved disciple to the maternal care of his mother. This is a clear sign that Jesus is not just trying to find a home for his mother after his death. This is not simply a private domestic arrangement that Jesus is making for his mother. He is entrusting to her a new responsibility. From now on she will be the mother, the true, spiritual mother of the disciples. ...

Through the power of the word of God Mary becomes the mother of the disciple; she becomes the mother of all the disciples. Her God-given mission from now on is to be the mother of all disciples. The beloved disciple too receives a new mission from Jesus. To him Jesus says, "She is your mother." Jesus' very last word to his disciple entrusts Mary to him as his own mother. The disciple must live by that word of God spoken by Jesus. We see how he responds. "From that hour the disciple took her into his own home." Receiving Mary as his own mother from the hands of Jesus on the cross is the last thing that the beloved disciple did before Jesus proclaimed, "It is fulfilled" (John 19:30). It is what every beloved disciple must do.

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quote:

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...it was on Calvary that Jesus proclaimed Mary our mother, when He addressed to Mary the words: 'Woman, behold thy son', and to St John, who personified all the redeemed, the words: 'Behold thy mother.' Tradition has always understood the words in that sense: they do not refer to a grace peculiar to St John alone, but go beyond him to all who are to be regenerated by the Cross.

The words of the dying Saviour, like sacramental words, produce what they signify: in Mary's soul they produced a great increase of charity and of maternal love for us; in John a profound filial affection, full of reverence for the Mother of God. There is the origin of devotion to Mary.

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So even though I have problems with the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception (which really concerns my problem with the idea of original sin) and the idea of perpetual virginity, because it contradicts Catholic teaching on marriage, I have no problem with the idea of Mary as the Mother of the Church. I just do not know what it really means in practice.

Perhaps you could explain...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
On the Catherine of Siena and the apparent medieval pre-occupation with Christ's foreskin and other parts of various Saints' anatomy ...

Grotesque as all this sort of thing can become, I can understand how this could come about with an emphasis on the Incarnation - there's a very fleshly aspect to Christianity which cuts against some of the neo-Platonic elements that are definitely there too.

On one level Christianity as we know it now is a Hellenised offshoot of Judaism - so we can expect hybrid Hebrew/Hellenistic elements. They're there in the NT too, particularly in John's Gospel.

They weren't quite so squeamish about these things in medieval times, of course. Read Chaucer.

And John Donne uses the analogy of God raping or 'ravishing' him in one of his poems - surely an image equally as shocking as anything in medieval hagiography.

Hmmm ...

Coming back to EE's points - and yes, I was over hasty in shooting my gob off at him earlier. I s'pose what I was rankled about was the disconnect in EE demanding (as it seemed to me) a sola-scriptura response from someone who doesn't operate within a sola-scriptura paradigm.

It's unreasonable, not to say impossible, to demand a sola-scriptura response from an RC or an Orthodox Christian as this isn't how they operate. It's not how they approach nor use the scriptures.

I'd also cheekily suggest that it isn't the way that Protestants approach or use the scriptures either. We all of us receive and use scripture in the context of a particular tradition or other. It comes filtered to us in that way. How could it be otherwise?

You could no more expect a sola-scriptura answer from Loggats than it would be reasonable for him to expect an answer from EE or ken or any other evangelical-ish Protestant couched in scripture and Tradition (Big T). It wouldn't be unreasonable, though, for Loggats to expect an answer from a Protestant couched in terms of scripture and tradition (small t) because that's how Protestants approach the scriptures - through the lens of whatever small t tradition they represent or have imbibed - be it Reformed, Wesleyan, evangelical, Pentecostal or whatever else.

That's how these things work. There's no way round it.

That said, and I do sincerely apologise to EE, I'm glad EE asked the question because it did elicit a response that has led, it seems to me, to the more measured and thoughtful exchange that we appear to be having now. It's taken the heat out of things to some extent.

Or so it seems to me.


 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
To me it means reflecting on the great mystery of Mary - of herself she is nothing, and God has for our sake manifested His glory and His love in her.

She's the most perfectly poor and the most perfectly hidden saint, the one who has absolutely nothing whatsoever that she tries to possess as her own so that she can completely communicate to the rest of us the grace of our infinitely selfless God. The more we resemble her by empty ourselves and become poor and hidden, the more we resemble Him.

Her motherhood extends beyond the person of Christ to the faithful, all Christian people.

(Also for anybody interested: Catechism of the Church: Mary - Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church, a pretty perfect summation of Catholic teaching about Mary.)
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
I picture a woman from a Brazilian favela. She ran away from her first man because he abused her. Her second man just left her. She has children with both of them, and she is worried that her daughter will fall into the hands of a violent guy in the favela. There are literally millions of women like this in Latin America.

Now, suppose a Catholic priest would go to her and say "why can't you be more like Mary?" (the Catholic priests I personally know in Brazil wouldn't do that), she could rightly spit in his face: "Well, it was easy for immaculate, whole-hymen her! Let her start by suffering birth pains for a while, then maybe we could talk."

I would wholeheartedly agree with her.

---

She watched her only Son humiliated and tortured, hung on a Cross and left to die.

Our Lady was no stranger to pain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
I picture a woman from a Brazilian favela. She ran away from her first man because he abused her. Her second man just left her. She has children with both of them, and she is worried that her daughter will fall into the hands of a violent guy in the favela. There are literally millions of women like this in Latin America.

Now, suppose a Catholic priest would go to her and say "why can't you be more like Mary?" (the Catholic priests I personally know in Brazil wouldn't do that), she could rightly spit in his face: "Well, it was easy for immaculate, whole-hymen her! Let her start by suffering birth pains for a while, then maybe we could talk."

I would wholeheartedly agree with her.

---

She watched her only Son humiliated and tortured, hung on a Cross and left to die.

Our Lady was no stranger to pain.

---

But she was almost certainly treated with loving respect all her life. That makes pain easier to bear.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
People who play the "I've suffered more than you and you can't ever understand my suffering" game are unfortunately very tedious. And pitiable, but still. Tedious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm not so sure about the loving respect. When she and her sons show up to take Jesus away to the funny farm, I can't help thinking that her heart was not in it--after all, she knew the facts of his birth, she remembered the various prophecies, visit to the temple at 12, etc. So why was she there at all? (particularly when we see her back on the "right" side at the crucifixion and resurrection, etc.)

I can only make sense of it by supposing that Jesus' brothers (cousins, if you must!) who were downright unbelievers had forced her to go along. And that doesn't sound very respectful to me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
People who play the "I've suffered more than you and you can't ever understand my suffering" game are unfortunately very tedious. And pitiable, but still. Tedious.

---

Unless it is true.

I've noticed that it is rather typical to dismiss suffering in some situations because it is really hard to face the reality of it. The full on, terrible story of it, particularly when told to you in a situation of no escape from the hearing.

Calling it tedious or pitiable may be dismissive but it may also be a psychological defence against truly understanding on the emotional level - empathy - the suffering. We are not all the same, some have suffered much more than others. I have wondered how it is that Christ identified with the suffering so well, and we so often fail to properly try to follow his example.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
The point is that when you give something a name, you can therefore dismiss it. As you have now done again.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
It is not normal to discuss any woman's hymen in polite society.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
It is not normal to discuss any woman's hymen in polite society.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

............................It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

What different ideas do all of you have?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

............................It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

What different ideas do all of you have?

---

Taking you at your word

My view is that arguing about whether Mary is Ever Virgin is like arguing about whether Excalibur was caught cleanly by the Lady of the Lake –i.e. the underlying myth is not fact. When a story (perhaps originally offered as a parable or an allegory) is taken as fact the attempts to justify the questions raised by that misunderstanding result in the validations becoming progressively more and more tenuous. (That's how we get YECs).

In both cases - IMHO it’s a story and you’re not supposed to take any of it literally, let alone a rather odd idea which has subsequently been attached to the earlier versions of the original story.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
Thanks for sharing your views, and hello. I think you're the first non-Christian I've met here.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is interesting to read examples of coy reluctance to countenance any discussion of Mary's hymen, given the many centuries of veneration of the Holy Prepuce, including Christ's slipping it onto the finger of Catherine of Siena at her mystical marriage to him.

---

It is not normal to discuss any woman's hymen in polite society.

I would be very suspicious of anyone these days of either sex who claimed to have a special devotion to the Holy Prepuce.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I appreciate what you are saying, Anselmina, but you're still Bulverizing. You're saying, "The church had such-and-such characteristics. This belief is in keeping with those charcteristics. Therefore the reason they put forth this belief is because of those characteristics." It's psychologizing away the belief, which is Bulverism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
Too late now, of course, but if there had been healthier and better informed attitudes towards sex and women back in the day, there wouldn't've been a 'need' for an ever-virgin concept.

---

This is of course Bulverism. You have no evidence that the concept arose because there was a "need," let alone that the "need" was based on unhealthy attitudes towards sex.

---

That's because some people have a real big chip on their shoulder, that is certain breeds of feminists, mainly the rabid kind. They're unable to see things in any other terms except "You're a man, you're oppressing me." So, if you like women to be feminine, "Fuck of and die, mysoginist!" Or if you believe in the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos, "Virginity infantilises women and leads to oppression."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
For this reason I don't accept that a praxis of celibacy, such as is observed in the Catholic Church, can be justified from 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

---

FWIW I take the interpretation that says St Paul thought the world was about to end, and it was therefore irresponsible to have children.

Regardless, although you're right to point out the degree of qualification St Paul applies to the passage, I don't think your other objections stand:

a. Someone once complained to St Jerome that if everyone was celibate there would be no future generations. St Jerome's response was that the chance of everyone becoming celibate was close to nil, so the objection doesn't stand. 'What if everyone did it?' is only relevant if either i.) you are a Kantian, or ii.) there is a significant chance of everyone doing it.

b. To say 'if everyone carried out a supposed command to celibacy, we wouldn't exist, therefore the command can't have been given' is kind of nonsensical. If world leaders in 1914 had carried out the command to pursue peace, such that the 20th century was a haven of unbroken tranquility, then it's hard to see how I could in any meaningful sense exist. Someone else might have been born at the same time as me, but they wouldn't be me.
 

---

Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
EE - your posts are a bit Jekyll and Hyde. One minute you're tearing Catholic theology apart, the next minute you write this amazing post which could almost convert me to Mariology ...

On John 19: 26-27, 'Woman, behold your son' and 'Here is your mother' from the cross ... the plain reading of that has always struck me as the most obvious one, that Jesus was giving Mary into John's personal care. I do realise other factors come into play, e.g. who the author of John's gospel was writing for. And I'm not instinctively hostile to the idea of Mary being our mother (mother of the church, that is) - I just find the arguments for it rather fanciful.

Loggats - Sola Scriptura is not heresy. It's a complex issue, certainly more complex than Protestant fundies realise, but it ain't heresy. Here is a good explanation, without any Catholic-bashing - in fact, the author is pretty nice to Catholics:

http://www.leithart.com/2012/06/07/conversation-or-monologue/
 

---

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Anselmina,

I was mainly thinking of a previous post made by L'organist, though I do think some of the reasoning in your post comes dangerously close i.e. that the belief in the perpeutual virginity of Mary arose from a "need" due to unhealthy views about women by men. It seems rather simplistic, if you ask me, and a non sequitur. It uses modern feminism as the rule by which the belief should be judged without ever establishing whether or not the belief is actually true.

[ 02. May 2013, 10:49: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
 

---

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurelin:
EE - your posts are a bit Jekyll and Hyde. One minute you're tearing Catholic theology apart, the next minute you write this amazing post which could almost convert me to Mariology ...

On John 19: 26-27, 'Woman, behold your son' and 'Here is your mother' from the cross ... the plain reading of that has always struck me as the most obvious one, that Jesus was giving Mary into John's personal care. I do realise other factors come into play, e.g. who the author of John's gospel was writing for. And I'm not instinctively hostile to the idea of Mary being our mother (mother of the church, that is) - I just find the arguments for it rather fanciful.

Loggats - Sola Scriptura is not heresy. It's a complex issue, certainly more complex than Protestant fundies realise, but it ain't heresy. Here is a good explanation, without any Catholic-bashing - in fact, the author is pretty nice to Catholics:

http://www.leithart.com/2012/06/07/conversation-or-monologue/

---

Holy Scripture is not the only infallible source of Christian doctrine. I believe this to be true and the Church teaches this:

"The Church [...] 'does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.' [...] The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus' teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition." (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

While I do agree that EE has a passionate way with words, he wasn't "tearing Catholic theology apart" (which would pretty much constitute tearing Christianity apart - and that can't happen because the Word of God is inviolate and that's what the Church seeks to express) so much as letting us know about his discontent with the Church, and some of the things believed by Catholics.

I do agree that his latest post was excellent, and I'm glad it brought you closer to Mary. God making use of an evangelical protestant to bring people to the Mother of God - we live in an age of wonders
 

---

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus
Regardless, although you're right to point out the degree of qualification St Paul applies to the passage, I don't think your other objections stand:

a. Someone once complained to St Jerome that if everyone was celibate there would be no future generations. St Jerome's response was that the chance of everyone becoming celibate was close to nil, so the objection doesn't stand. 'What if everyone did it?' is only relevant if either i.) you are a Kantian, or ii.) there is a significant chance of everyone doing it.

b. To say 'if everyone carried out a supposed command to celibacy, we wouldn't exist, therefore the command can't have been given' is kind of nonsensical. If world leaders in 1914 had carried out the command to pursue peace, such that the 20th century was a haven of unbroken tranquility, then it's hard to see how I could in any meaningful sense exist. Someone else might have been born at the same time as me, but they wouldn't be me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I suppose we could call this method of verification "the principle of universal applicability".

---

What you are describing is Kantian ethics and the Categorical Imperative. I agree that on Kantian terms your argument is valid, but I'm questioning whether we have to be Kantians.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'll defend EE here, not something I've done very often, because I can empathise and have been similarly Jekyll and Hyde-ish here recently. It comes from switching between Hell and Purgatory without allowing time for a cuppa or an intermediate decompression chamber phase.

It also comes from having a genuine interest - as EE does have it seems - in exploring other people's viewpoints as well as promoting or defending one's own. And I think most of us here have that genuine interest ... although I do doubt that at times.

As for sola-scriptura being a heresy - well it depends on where you are standing of course. If you are RC or Orthodox then of course it's a heresy. But if you're Protestant it isn't. That's how these things work. Heresy is only heresy if there's an orthodoxy to hold against it and your orthodoxy will share certain characteristics with both RC and Orthodox orthodoxy (as it were) but differ from them in different ways.

If RC's or Orthodox were sola-scriptura in their approach then they wouldn't be RCs or Orthodox but something different - Protestants of some description perhaps.

I think it is possible for RCs and Orthodox to misunderstand what Protestants mean by sola scriptura - and I think it's fair to say that many Protestants don't actually understand the concept properly themselves or at least try to apply it rather cack-handedly.

So again, we end up talking past each other to a large extent.

I've not followed your link, Laurelin, but I've long been of the impression that sola-scriptura is a bit of a stretch ... we none of us approach the scriptures in a vacuum. We all filter our understanding of scripture through some lens or other, some context. The way you approach the scriptures will be in accordance with the tradition you've received and been shaped by. Same with anyone else.

I'm not sure the 'h' word is too helpful though, in this context. I think 'heterodox' would be better than 'heretical' here. The RCs and Orthodox will correct me if they think otherwise, but I don't think they're suggesting that Protestants are on the same level of 'wrongness' if you like as Mormons or JWs (who'd be considered heretical by most Protestants) simply because they adopt what they consider to be a 'sola-scriptura' approach.

Effectively, sola-scriptura is short-hand for, 'My own interpretation of scripture/My particular tradition's interpretation of scripture as opposed to that taken by the RC or the Orthodox Churches.'
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@ loggats, we could reverse the compliment ...

'God making use of an evangelical protestant to bring people to the Mother of God - we live in an age of wonders ...'

I found myself chuckling once when reading a very Reformed evangelical Protestant magazine in which there was an article about how a group which most Prots would consider cult-like and heretical had turned closer towards an orthodox understanding of the Trinity and Deity of Christ in recent years.

I won't cite chapter and verse (they know who they are and we have a former representative of this group aboard Ship), but the author described how one of the leaders of this group had come round to a more orthodoxy Trinitarian understanding through correspondence with a Roman Catholic priest.

'Fancy,' the author effectively said, 'What a wonder it is that God even used a Roman Catholic priest to return this gentleman to a more orthodox understanding of the faith!'



The irony was delicious.
 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 
Ricardus -

Well, if we shouldn't be Kantians, then people shouldn't make comments with universal reference. They can hardly complain when we seek to apply what they have actually said!
 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats
God making use of an evangelical protestant to bring people to the Mother of God - we live in an age of wonders.

---

Sorry to pour cold water on this, but I would hesitate to call myself an "evangelical protestant". Get me on the subject of "inherited guilt", TULIP or the conduct of certain evangelical missions and "you ain't seen nothin' yet" in terms of vituperation!

Don't be deceived by my moniker. In fact, it's becoming a matter of certain regret that I have called myself "EtymologicalEvangelical". I was trying to be a bit sermonic about the word "evangelical", and perhaps I should have called myself something daft like "windscreen wiper*" or some such name! (I have the impression that some people see the word "evangelical" and a certain reflex kicks in that overrides any attempt to understand the origin and root meaning of the word. My bad.)


* effective in removing spiritual bird crap from your spiritual vision as you journey on your Christian pilgrimage! Cringe!!!
 

---

Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'll defend EE here, not something I've done very often, because I can empathise and have been similarly Jekyll and Hyde-ish here recently. It comes from switching between Hell and Purgatory without allowing time for a cuppa or an intermediate decompression chamber phase.

---

quote:

---

I've not followed your link, Laurelin, but I've long been of the impression that sola-scriptura is a bit of a stretch ...

---

Click the link. It's a good essay, not a long one. The author is no lightweight.

quote:

---

... we none of us approach the scriptures in a vacuum. We all filter our understanding of scripture through some lens or other, some context. The way you approach the scriptures will be in accordance with the tradition you've received and been shaped by. Same with anyone else.

---

quote:

---

Effectively, sola-scriptura is short-hand for, 'My own interpretation of scripture/My particular tradition's interpretation of scripture as opposed to that taken by the RC or the Orthodox Churches.'

---

Sola Scriptura can be corrupted into Solo Scriptura, sure. We all read Scripture filtered through a tradition. That doesn't mean that traditions in the older, apostolic churches can't sometimes be challenged ... such as the perpetual virginity of Mary. So which 'side' do you come down on?

I do think this is a very good thread. I like discussing Mary.
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
My comment was a little tongue in cheek, though I am glad that somebody here got a new perspective on Mary by reading your post.

(totally unrelated but... does anybody else think that vomiting emoticon is completely disgusting?! )
 

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Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
This evangelical has been a fan of Mary for a long time. She does NOT get enough attention in Prot circles ... like I said, an over-reaction to the issues of 500 years ago. When you're in reaction, you tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I'm still cool with the possibility/plausibility of her having children after Jesus, though. She's awesome, whatever the Holy Family's life was actually like.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
As it's 'Be nice to EE day', I'll chip in to say that I understand your moniker, EE, because I've seen you explain it before.

I've picked up some of your views on certain popular tendencies within evangelicalism that get your goat - and I think that may be why I thought you were a universalist over in Hell the other day. I think I'd mixed your posts up with someone else's. Which doesn't mean I don't read your posts ... I must do otherwise I wouldn't have know what you meant by your moniker.

@Laurelin - yes, absolutely. I'll read your link.

As to which side of the fence I come down on re the Perpetual Virginity thing. Well, I'm sat on the fence ...

It's my default position on most issues even though it means I get a paling or two sticking up my bum.
 

---

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Anselmina,

I was mainly thinking of a previous post made by L'organist, though I do think some of the reasoning in your post comes dangerously close i.e. that the belief in the perpeutual virginity of Mary arose from a "need" due to unhealthy views about women by men. It seems rather simplistic, if you ask me, and a non sequitur. It uses modern feminism as the rule by which the belief should be judged without ever establishing whether or not the belief is actually true.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
(totally unrelated but... does anybody else think that vomiting emoticon is completely disgusting?! )

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
That's because some people have a real big chip on their shoulder, that is certain breeds of feminists, mainly the rabid kind. They're unable to see things in any other terms except "You're a man, you're oppressing me." "

---

 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alisdair:
loggats -- I'm not sure why being the `Incarnate Word' prevents Jesus being `ordinary'. He breathed, bled, got tired, was subject to temptation. All the evidence we have points to Jesus being an `ordinary man'---a `son of man'.
[...]
Everything we know about Jesus says, at least it seems to me, that he truly took the form of a servant and became one with us.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alisdair:
loggats -- I'm not sure why being the `Incarnate Word' prevents Jesus being `ordinary'. He breathed, bled, got tired, was subject to temptation. All the evidence we have points to Jesus being an `ordinary man'---a `son of man'.
[...]
Everything we know about Jesus says, at least it seems to me, that he truly took the form of a servant and became one with us.

---

Yep. That's the teaching of the Chalcedonian Definition which is pretty much the touchstoen of Orthodoxy (big and little O)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurelin
EE - your posts are a bit Jekyll and Hyde. One minute you're tearing Catholic theology apart, the next minute you write this amazing post which could almost convert me to Mariology ...

---

It's because I'm trying to get at the truth. Also I don't have much - if any - respect for labels. In my view, every doctrine and truth claim has to earn its right to be believed by being logical and consistent with the evidence (and yeah, I know we can have a huge debate about what constitutes valid evidence. I once set that merry-go-round in motion and it lasted for many hundreds of posts.) I don't accept that an argument should be accepted simply by association with a particular favoured denomination. Everything is up for scrutiny, AFAIAC.

So on that basis I have problems with the Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity of Mary, but I can't see how the standard Protestant interpretation of John 19:25-27 makes sense given the gravity of the context. This domestic arrangement seems to me to be entirely redundant, because it's not as though the Church would have allowed Mary to starve out on the street if Jesus had not said anything. Surely Jesus' words from the cross have meaning for all believers?

But, to be honest, I haven't got the foggiest idea what it means for Mary to be the "Mother of the Church". I remember once even trying to pray to Mary, and it was about the most spiritually dead experience I have ever had (and I am not saying that because I have slipped back into "nasty mode". It's just the truth about how I felt). If ever I could sympathise with an atheist who comes out with "there's nothing there" it was then. I have certainly never felt that when praying to God, because He certainly is there. Of course, Mary is there as one of the eternally redeemed, but prayer-wise she seemed not to be. Maybe it's just me? I'm willing to accept that it is.

I am an annoying "picker and chooser" when it comes to doctrines. I feel I am almost genetically incapable of just submitting to a denominational package wholesale, and believing stuff simply because "my church says so". I just cannot do it. Maybe it's just an annoying "ooh look at the emperor, he's got no clothes on" syndrome!
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

---

loggats: Yes, but being Son of God as well as son of man isn't what I'd call ordinary (commonplace, standard, 'exactly like everyone else').

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject.

............................It's the Catholic understanding that Mary is a virgin before Jesus' birth, during and after, and forever. A woman that gives birth naturally is not a virgin and Mary is Ever Virgin.

What different ideas do all of you have?

---

Taking you at your word

My view is that arguing about whether Mary is Ever Virgin is like arguing about whether Excalibur was caught cleanly by the Lady of the Lake –i.e. the underlying myth is not fact. When a story (perhaps originally offered as a parable or an allegory) is taken as fact the attempts to justify the questions raised by that misunderstanding result in the validations becoming progressively more and more tenuous. (That's how we get YECs).

In both cases - IMHO it’s a story and you’re not supposed to take any of it literally, let alone a rather odd idea which has subsequently been attached to the earlier versions of the original story.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurelin:
Loggats - Sola Scriptura is not heresy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

---

loggats: Yes, but being Son of God as well as son of man isn't what I'd call ordinary (commonplace, standard, 'exactly like everyone else').

---

The extraordinary thing is that God became ordinary.

---

quote:

---

loggats: Ok, I get it - we're besotted with the word ordinary.

---

Actually, it's an important part of my personal theology, and it's something I've been thinking about quite a while lately. God isn't somewhere sitting on His cloud, while understanding nothing about our struggles and our suffering. No, He came down and experienced this. That's pretty important to me.

He knows what it's like to be us. "What if God was one of us?" Well, He was. He wiped His nose and had to shit like the rest of us. (I like to think that He enjoyed the last experience )
 

---

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

I am an annoying "picker and chooser" when it comes to doctrines. I feel I am almost genetically incapable of just submitting to a denominational package wholesale, and believing stuff simply because "my church says so". I just cannot do it. Maybe it's just an annoying "ooh look at the emperor, he's got no clothes on" syndrome!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

---

loggats: Ok, I get it - we're besotted with the word ordinary.

---

Actually, it's an important part of my personal theology, and it's something I've been thinking about quite a while lately. God isn't somewhere sitting on His cloud, while understanding nothing about our struggles and our suffering. No, He came down and experienced this. That's pretty important to me.

He knows what it's like to be us. "What if God was one of us?" Well, He was. He wiped His nose and had to shit like the rest of us. (I like to think that He enjoyed the last experience )

---

quote:

---

loggats: It's as much about God as it is about man.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

---

loggats: It's as much about God as it is about man.

---

With this I agree. For instance, I happen to believe that God actually learned something during the Incarnation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats
I think it does take some humility to accept that the Church knows more than we do when it comes to certain revealed matters...

---

quote:

---

loggats: What do you think He learnt?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Her womb was sanctified by our Lord's presence. To use a similitude, once a chalice has been consecrated as the vessel of our Lord's blood in the Eucharist it is no longer a common drinking vessel and it would be a sacrilege to use it as such.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'd be wary, EE, of using feelings and impressions as a bench-mark. If you didn't 'feel' anything when you attempted to 'pray to' Mary then that, in and of itself, doesn't invalidate the practice.

I once went to an Orthodox service where they were all venerating a famous Russian icon of the Virgin Mary that was on tour of the UK. I plunged in and did exactly what they were doing. I found it strangely uplifting spiritually, even though the 'logical', Protestant part of my brain and psyche was doing triple somersaults.

What does this mean?

If I were going purely on experience I'd have crossed the Bosphorus at that point.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Her womb was sanctified by our Lord's presence. To use a similitude, once a chalice has been consecrated as the vessel of our Lord's blood in the Eucharist it is no longer a common drinking vessel and it would be a sacrilege to use it as such.

---

I know some people think this way, but it seems to me a form of magical or superstitious thinking.

My reading is that Jesus would be only too happy to see His chalice used to give a drink of water to a passing tramp.

Best wishes,

Russ

---

quote:

---

superstition n- 1.a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like. 2. irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, especially in connection with religion.

---

quote:

---

Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: Aye LeRoc, Love is immutable and sentient, relational, omnipathic Love experienced and is changed by all creational including human experience for a start and to cap it all all theory was put in to practice as Christ. His anthropomorphisms were REAL from the beginning. He's ALWAYS been human as long as there have been humans at least. Then He was fully, 'only' human in Christ. Surprise at what creation does is constant for Him. Not just when He was human. He is constantly changed by creation. By experience that He has NEVER had before. Ours including as one of us. Losing Himself as one of us in BOTH meanings of that.

---

quote:

---

I remember once even trying to pray to Mary, and it was about the most spiritually dead experience I have ever had (and I am not saying that because I have slipped back into "nasty mode". It's just the truth about how I felt).

---

quote:

---

I am an annoying "picker and chooser" when it comes to doctrines. I feel I am almost genetically incapable of just submitting to a denominational package wholesale, and believing stuff simply because "my church says so". I just cannot do it. Maybe it's just an annoying "ooh look at the emperor, he's got no clothes on" syndrome! [Big Grin]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by roybart:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

---

I remember once even trying to pray to Mary, and it was about the most spiritually dead experience I have ever had (and I am not saying that because I have slipped back into "nasty mode". It's just the truth about how I felt).

---

You describe perfectly they way I often felt in my youth, when I was trying hard to adopt and live up to Roman Catholicism.

Nowadays, instead of prayingto Mary, I often find myself talking to her. Wondering what she would say or do about something troubling or perplexing me. Imagining her responses. Listening. Trying to learn from what I think she would do or say, based on what I know about her life, her times, and her unique relationship to Jesus. All of that is possible for me now, and actually quite comforting. Something to be grateful for.

quote:

---

I am an annoying "picker and chooser" when it comes to doctrines. I feel I am almost genetically incapable of just submitting to a denominational package wholesale, and believing stuff simply because "my church says so". I just cannot do it. Maybe it's just an annoying "ooh look at the emperor, he's got no clothes on" syndrome! [Big Grin]

---

This is one of the reasons I always pay attention to your posts, EE, and often learn from them. While it can educational to read the posts of those who seem to have bought the complete package of this or that orthodoxy, it's more fun and stimulating to read what thoughtful, self-aware pickers and choosers have to say.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
If I were going purely on experience I'd have crossed the Bosphorus at that point.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
Thanks for sharing your views, and hello. I think you're the first non-Christian I've met here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Anselmina,

I was mainly thinking of a previous post made by L'organist, though I do think some of the reasoning in your post comes dangerously close i.e. that the belief in the perpeutual virginity of Mary arose from a "need" due to unhealthy views about women by men. It seems rather simplistic, if you ask me, and a non sequitur. It uses modern feminism as the rule by which the belief should be judged without ever establishing whether or not the belief is actually true.

---

Thanks for your answer, and the point you make; which is very well made and valid.

I don't think I'll ever agree with some Orthodox or Catholic views on Mary for reasons stated, but I do have respect for them and those who hold them. If by making my reasons for rejecting these views sound too simplistic, it seems as if I'm denigrating Mary, that's not my intention. She is most definitely worthy of a special and unique place in our faith. She's definitely a hero.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
In the spirit of good will, an all that, I don't think anyone is deliberately denigrating the Virgin Mary. I just think the reasoning is wrong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee
**Hearsay, tradition, wishful thinking, nice warm feelings, voices in one’s head, arguments from authority by men in fancy dress, stories invented/embraced by nomadic stone-age goat herders and uncorroborated writings chosen as sacred by a group commanded by a despotic emperor do not meet the standards normally required for “solid evidence”.

---

I sure would love to see the extraordinary atheistic claims about reality meeting the standards normally required for "solid evidence"! I seem to remember my thread entitled "evidence" some months ago, which resulted in one atheist having to resort to "paraconsistent logic" (aka non-logic) to defend his position, such was his level of desperation!

Still, I suppose we all hear different voices in our heads...

[/tangent]
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@ Kaplan, ha ha ...

Mind you, I've always thought of the Brethren as being overly literal ...

'Crossing the Bosphorus,' is, of course and as you well know, an analogous term to 'crossing the Tiber' (or 'crossing the Thames' come to that).

I think I might have mentioned 'crossing Lake Geneva' at some point, but I must admit I've not looked at an atlas to check whether I'd need to cross the lake to get to the town from here.

I wonder what the equivalent term would be for joining one of the Free or non-conformist churches? We could start a jolly thread on that one.

'Crossing the boundaries of good taste,' might be one that suits your stereotypical, Antipodean view of anything more than a few decades old ...
 

---

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Her womb was sanctified by our Lord's presence. To use a similitude, once a chalice has been consecrated as the vessel of our Lord's blood in the Eucharist it is no longer a common drinking vessel and it would be a sacrilege to use it as such.

---

I know some people think this way, but it seems to me a form of magical or superstitious thinking.

My reading is that Jesus would be only too happy to see His chalice used to give a drink of water to a passing tramp.

Best wishes,

Russ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I explained why I believe the reasoning to be faulty in my post to Anselmina.

---

quote:

---

As for the historical-critical method, no, I have no time for it at all.

---

The origins of ancient biblical texts, the 'world behind the text' is of no interest to you?


So, have we come to a conclusion yet on how exactly Our Lady gave birth to Jesus?

Because my vote is for a normal birth.
 

---

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
stereotypical, Antipodean view of anything more than a few decades old ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I explained why I believe the reasoning to be faulty in my post to Anselmina. As for the historical-critical method, no, I have no time for it at all.

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quote:

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46 And Mary said:

‘My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me –
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.

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quote:

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4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
I'd be wary, EE, of using feelings and impressions as a bench-mark. If you didn't 'feel' anything when you attempted to 'pray to' Mary then that, in and of itself, doesn't invalidate the practice.

I once went to an Orthodox service where they were all venerating a famous Russian icon of the Virgin Mary that was on tour of the UK. I plunged in and did exactly what they were doing. I found it strangely uplifting spiritually, even though the 'logical', Protestant part of my brain and psyche was doing triple somersaults.

What does this mean?

If I were going purely on experience I'd have crossed the Bosphorus at that point.

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quote:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Thanks for sharing your views, and hello. I think you're the first non-Christian I've met here.

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And hello to you too.

May I presume as an atheist- (that is one who does not believe in a god or gods and therefore has no dogmatic axe to grind) to offer a little advice.

I understand your zealous confidence and your certainty of conviction – you remind me, accurately or not, of the somewhat priggish and undoubtedly arrogant child/youth that I was. My christianity may have been rather differently nuanced to yours but it was just as sincere, just as important and just as real to me as I’m sure yours is to you.

On these boards you will meet many people, mainly self-avowed christians but with a leavening of atheists and agnostics – many of whom will be more knowledgeable, more experienced and more generous of character than your contributions so far suggest you to be. If it’s any comfort most of them are (in matters of christian dogma) a lot more knowledgeable than I and probably more than a few of them are much nicer people than I ever could be. There are also, IMHO, some whose desires for the thrill of debate and the chance to display their (at least sometimes) undoubted erudition has led them to embrace nit-picking dogma to an extent which, were it to exist, would drive the Holy Ghost to despair as they crash unheedingly through others’ attempts to facilitate the great commission.

What I guess I’m trying to say is that, dependent upon your motivation for posting on SoF, you may wish to present your sincerely held beliefs either as such or as teachings of the organisation to which you have chosen submission. ISTM that sometimes your posts suggest that you think you are handing down eternal truths vouchsafed to you for the greater edification of we unfortunates of lesser understanding*. If, of course, you can demonstrate by means of solid evidence** that they are eternal truths etc. I for one would be fascinated to have the detail of that evidence.


*Examples available upon request

**Hearsay, tradition, wishful thinking, nice warm feelings, voices in one’s head, arguments from authority by men in fancy dress, stories invented/embraced by nomadic stone-age goat herders and uncorroborated writings chosen as sacred by a group commanded by a despotic emperor do not meet the standards normally required for “solid evidence”.


My apologies to Hosts if I'm straying into their domain.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@ Kaplan, ha ha ...

Mind you, I've always thought of the Brethren as being overly literal ...

'Crossing the Bosphorus,' is, of course and as you well know, an analogous term to 'crossing the Tiber' (or 'crossing the Thames' come to that).

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quote:

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I think I might have mentioned 'crossing Lake Geneva' at some point, but I must admit I've not looked at an atlas to check whether I'd need to cross the lake to get to the town from here.

I wonder what the equivalent term would be for joining one of the Free or non-conformist churches? We could start a jolly thread on that one. ...

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Crossing the Waters of Leith? Or for one of the more stringent varieties, crossing the Minch? Or for joining the Brethren, crossing the Tamar, except that in literal terms, the Tamar is on the Cornwall side, so crossing the Plym is more accurate?

 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Oh you mean the one quoted by Anselmina here?

But that's just a rantish assertion. It shows what you believe but it does not address any reasoning. It is a classic piece of Bulverism.

And of course it stimulated ken's "vomitarium" post.

Again, it tells me where you are coming from but I don't have the least idea why. If findings coming out of historical criticism or arguments coming out of feminism are wrong, you can criticise the findings and arguments on their own merits, including going back to underlying premises if you like. That's fine. That's the way serious argument is done.

You don't prove anything by asserting underlying prejudices, either in processes or people.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The reason I reject the historical critical method is because it is completely detatched from Tradition.

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So your faith is entirely insulated from anything new; any new archaeological evidence, linguistic discoveries, new insight into the culture of Biblical times that might suggest a revision of how we interpret the Bible...?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, the Tamar indeed. Or it could be the Liffey as the Brethren emanated from meetings held in Dublin too, if I remember rightly ...

I s'pose it'd be the Tweed for anyone considering the Kirk.

As for Kaplan's puzzlement as to what I mean by my teasing comment about an Antipodean tendency to debunk tradition and anything 'old' ... well, Aussie iconoclasm is well known. They don't take too kindly to 'authority'. It's part of their charm.



Seriously, I'm only serving him back for comments he's made here to the effect that the only reason that some of us don't diss Copts, Orthodox and RCs as much as they might deserve is because we're snobs and prefer 'old money' to 'new money'.

I'm just joffing and riffing around that idea.

I'll get me coat ...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
To be fair to the Orthodox - and not necessarily to Ad Orientem - I once attended a fascinating two-day study led by Bishop Kallistos Ware.

He was fully cognisant of modern critical techniques and approaches and of recent scholarship in archaeology and so on.

Obviously, his approach to the scriptures was rooted in and defined by his grounding in Tradition - but he wasn't dismissive by any means of biblical scholarship from within Protestant or other traditions.

I'm guessing, but I suspect that Ad Orientem would have found it all rather too 'liberal' for him.
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Probably.
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Knowing a bit about how to 'do' history, the idea of not applying a dose of historical common sense to scripture, yet alone tradition, strikes me as deliberately obscurantist. It also means that even if you have a high view of the status of the text, you miss a lot of stimulating nuances that are clearly there if you have the eyes to see them.

Why, for example, did Jezebel have to have Naboth accused specifically of treason? Why couldn't she have arranged to have him quietly done in? Or just grab the vineyard anyway? There is a good reason for this.
 

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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
This thread reminds me of whoever it was said that you can't discuss the Virgin Mary with Catholics without feeling you've insulted their mother.
 

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Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The reason I reject the historical critical method is because it is completely detatched from Tradition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
Knowing a bit about how to 'do' history, the idea of not applying a dose of historical common sense to scripture, yet alone tradition, strikes me as deliberately obscurantist. It also means that even if you have a high view of the status of the text, you miss a lot of stimulating nuances that are clearly there if you have the eyes to see them.

Why, for example, did Jezebel have to have Naboth accused specifically of treason? Why couldn't she have arranged to have him quietly done in? Or just grab the vineyard anyway? There is a good reason for this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think a lot of conservative Protestants and RCs would take the same view of that tendency within modernism, Ad Orientem. That doesn't mean to say that there's nothing to learn from the modern, critical approach though ... Bishop Kallistos clearly felt it was possible to learn from it without it posing any threat whatsoever to Tradition (or tradition come to that).

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quote:

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I can see a both/and here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
Do you always 'feel' anything when you pray to Almighty God?

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
God the Father: "Let's put a bush right in the middle of the desert, so that Moses will know that something special is going on."

His Son: "Daddy, put fire to the bush!"

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Heh heh ...

Sure, I think there was a tendency to overdo typology in the Patristic period as well as a tendency to overdo it within evangelicalism too ... but I don't have an issue with applying the story of the Burning Bush to either Christ or to his Mother in the sense that what was happening there can be applied analogously to the both of them (as we'd say in South Wales) ...

Of course, the Church has retrospectively discerned these aspects and elements - effectively 'Christianising' the OT. Perhaps the Suffering Servant in Isaiah is the paradigm example of this.

I don't have a problem, of course, in seeing Christ as the Suffering Servant - the NT does that - but as long as this doesn't take away from the fact that it also had a contemporary application in the time of whichever Isaiah it was (and there was two or possibly even three or four of them ) ...

What I do have a problem with is a woodenly literal approach to typology and OT prophecy which asserts that a particular interpretation is the only possible one it has or ever had.

@ EE - I'm still thinking about your comment about 'feeling' something in general terms when you pray to God. I'm not sure what you mean by that - but I'm reluctant to enter into a discussion about 'feelings' and their validity as this is a purely subjective thing. I didn't particularly 'feel' holy, blessed, or whatever else as I prayed this morning. Sometimes 'the heavens are as brass' - that doesn't mean that God has gone on holiday.

If we were going to go on 'feelings' though, what would say if I told you that I have venerated Mary and said/prayed the various RC and Orthodox prayers/liturgical material that points in her direction and gradually overcome my initial Protestant squeamishness in that regard.

It's difficult to quantify but I would suggest that I've developed a greater appreciation and indeed veneration for her as result. How could it be otherwise? If someone or something becomes an object of our devotion - however expressed - then the 'feelings' are going to follow, I would suggest.

'If at first you don't succeed.'

For all you or I or any of us know, had you persisted in 'praying to Mary' then sooner or later you could have developed a sense of personal devotion to her in the way that loggats or Ad Orientem have.

Who knows?
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But that's just a rantish assertion. It shows what you believe but it does not address any reasoning. It is a classic piece of Bulverism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
Do you always 'feel' anything when you pray to Almighty God?

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In a general sense, yes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Of course, the Church has retrospectively discerned these aspects and elements - effectively 'Christianising' the OT. Perhaps the Suffering Servant in Isaiah is the paradigm example of this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
@ EE - I'm still thinking about your comment about 'feeling' something in general terms when you pray to God. I'm not sure what you mean by that...

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quote:

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It's difficult to quantify but I would suggest that I've developed a greater appreciation and indeed veneration for her as result. How could it be otherwise? If someone or something becomes an object of our devotion - however expressed - then the 'feelings' are going to follow, I would suggest.

'If at first you don't succeed.'

For all you or I or any of us know, had you persisted in 'praying to Mary' then sooner or later you could have developed a sense of personal devotion to her in the way that loggats or Ad Orientem have.

Who knows?

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Originally posted by mousethief
Subjective emotional feelings (which is of course triply redundant) are a wobbly criteria for spiritual reality, and a dangerous one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But that's just a rantish assertion. It shows what you believe but it does not address any reasoning. It is a classic piece of Bulverism.

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I thought we had established that there's nothing wrong with Bulverism, and indeed it's just a nasty name to fling at people with no cognitive content?

quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel
Do you always 'feel' anything when you pray to Almighty God?

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In a general sense, yes.

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Not to do "guilty by association" but this is how Mormon missionaries draw in their victims. "Read the Book of Mormon, and see if you don't feel a burning in your heart."

Subjective emotional feelings (which is of course triply redundant) are a wobbly criteria for spiritual reality, and a dangerous one. The devil is capable of appearing as an angel of light.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Of course, the Church has retrospectively discerned these aspects and elements - effectively 'Christianising' the OT. Perhaps the Suffering Servant in Isaiah is the paradigm example of this.

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I think it depends on whether you think Christianity was a tack-on or accidental outgrowth of OT religion, or the natural and intended outcome. I'd imagine you can guess which side of that I come down on.

Oh and, "[Ye] Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Paul too is very explicit that the OT saints looked forward to Christ, and that the NT Church is what the whole shebang was set up for.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
[qb] Paul too is very explicit that the OT saints looked forward to Christ, and that the NT Church is what the whole shebang was set up for.

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I agree. I would also factor in Israel, but this is not the thread for that.

I can still do that and be cautious about some typology.
 

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Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
Ugh. Sorry about that stupid mess of a post at 5:08pm. Just ignore it.

[ 03. May 2013, 16:41: Message edited by: Laurelin ]
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Certainly I would say that in reading the OT, for instance, we should always look for Christ and his Church.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But that's just a rantish assertion. It shows what you believe but it does not address any reasoning. It is a classic piece of Bulverism.

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I thought we had established that there's nothing wrong with Bulverism, and indeed it's just a nasty name to fling at people with no cognitive content?

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quote:

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That's because some people have a real big chip on their shoulder, that is certain breeds of feminists, mainly the rabid kind. They're unable to see things in any other terms except "You're a man, you're oppressing me." So, if you like women to be feminine, "Fuck of and die, mysoginist!" Or if you believe in the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos, "Virginity infantilises women and leads to oppression."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Laurelin:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The reason I reject the historical critical method is because it is completely detatched from Tradition.

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The belief in Mary's perpetual virginity was something developed by the Church Fathers over time, it's not a doctrine that is immediately deducted from the New Testament or that Scripture hands over to us like a neatly packaged box with a ribbon on top. I'm not saying this to bash that particular belief or the Church Fathers, merely pointing out that the traditions of the church have developed organically over time. Which is why it took the Church three centuries to work out a satisfactory Creed that all Christians can say and why it took the Church a long time to formulate a good theology of the Trinity (which can be deduced from Scripture but needs careful working out).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The belief in Mary's perpetual virginity comes from the blessed Theotokos herself. It is also easily deduced from the scriptures by looking at who Christ is - God. Tradition, which is really only the scriptures properly understood does not "develop".

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1. What are you suggesting here? I'm not aware of any record of Mary's statements or writings.

2. I find it very difficult to accept the notion that it is easily deduced when millions of Bible-literate Christians have deduced no such thing.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I also find the idea that Tradition doesn't develop weird. Unless you make it mean something other than what the word 'tradition' actually means.
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
Protestants who don't recognise the divine institution and divine authority of an apostolic legacy in the Church as founded by Christ (with the living sense of its infallibility, indefectibility and teaching prerogatives) really can't be expected to understand or agree with Tradition.
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
It's the faith delivered once to the saints handed down through the Church. The tradition of the Apostles.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Which Apostle said that Mary kept perpetual virginity, and where did he say it?
 

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
Here's a shoddy attempt

The Greek term Aeiparthenos ("Ever Virgin") is attested to by Epiphanius of Salamis from the early 4th century. He's a saint in both Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and was Bishop of Cyprus - St Mark the Evangelist, a figure identified with John Mark (mentioned in several times in Acts, often in the company of St Peter), was a founder of the Church in Cyprus.

From Mark (as companion to St Paul, who first spread Christianity in the area) there's an unbroken line of apostolic succession through St Barnabas, cousin of St Mark (in 45). At this time it was under the jurisdiction of the Church of Jerusalem and in conformity to their teachings under the leadership of James the Just, to Macarius I - then in 325, we have independent bishops with Gelassios (325) and St Epiphanios (368) - the guy in question, who was using what must have been a concept current amongst the faithful and not scandalous (nobody questioned the belief for some 2,000 years until some people post-Reformation. After all, not even Luther thought it decent to dispute Our Lady's perpetual virginity).

Full of historical holes? Well, who knows. But that's one version of the story!
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The belief in Mary's perpetual virginity comes from the blessed Theotokos herself. It is also easily deduced from the scriptures by looking at who Christ is - God. Tradition, which is really only the scriptures properly understood does not "develop".

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This is that Orthodox argument that I always find so annoying:

a) The Truth™ is that which has always been believed by Christians;

b) We believe X;

c) We don't change;

d) QED
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Protestants who don't recognise the divine institution and divine authority of an apostolic legacy in the Church as founded by Christ (with the living sense of its infallibility, indefectibility and teaching prerogatives) really can't be expected to understand or agree with Tradition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Here's a shoddy attempt

The Greek term Aeiparthenos ("Ever Virgin") is attested to by Epiphanius of Salamis from the early 4th century. He's a saint in both Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and was Bishop of Cyprus - St Mark the Evangelist, a figure identified with John Mark (mentioned in several times in Acts, often in the company of St Peter), was a founder of the Church in Cyprus.

From Mark (as companion to St Paul, who first spread Christianity in the area) there's an unbroken line of apostolic succession through St Barnabas, cousin of St Mark (in 45). At this time it was under the jurisdiction of the Church of Jerusalem and in conformity to their teachings under the leadership of James the Just, to Macarius I - then in 325, we have independent bishops with Gelassios (325) and St Epiphanios (368) - the guy in question, who was using what must have been a concept current amongst the faithful and not scandalous (nobody questioned the belief for some 2,000 years until some people post-Reformation. After all, not even Luther thought it decent to dispute Our Lady's perpetual virginity).

Full of historical holes? Well, who knows. But that's one version of the story!

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Well... what about the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church, when it comes to preventing intrinsic errors?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
The guidance of the Holy Spirit?

Such such as when We* come across a Question on Doctrine, and send it down on Remit for consideration by the Elders in Session and Presbytery, for the concurrence of the same, an absolute majority being necessary in both groups, abstentions counting as "No", by which process the Kirk** devotes herself to studious reflection and opens herself to the Will of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to harmoniously fulfill God's Will, as was ordained before all Creation? Is that what you mean?

Why yes, it's a process I understand quite well as I participated in it two years ago. And a spiritually uplifting experience it was too!

But then I wouldn't expect a benighted Roman, who follows Patriarchs and Popes, who err and hath erred, and who has no vote in his Kirk (who since it is not the True Kirk must be some purported Kirk, what an unpleasant thought!) to understand that.

*Those blessed with descent from the Kirk, which has always been and ever shalt be.

**The Gathered People of God

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church.

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Can you not see the problem in this form of reasoning? All disagreements are automatically resolved in the negative, regardless of merit. It doesn't matter whether the positive has 10% of the numbers or 90% of the numbers.

EDIT: I can also think of examples where everybody in an organisation had accepted something until I, as a drafter external to the organisation, came along and demonstrated to them that what they had accepted was wrong.

The essence of my point of view is that I don't just want to know your conclusion. I want to know your reasoning process.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church.

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Can you not see the problem in this form of reasoning? All disagreements are automatically resolved in the negative, regardless of merit. It doesn't matter whether the positive has 10% of the numbers or 90% of the numbers.

EDIT: I can also think of examples where everybody in an organisation had accepted something until I, as a drafter external to the organisation, came along and demonstrated to them that what they had accepted was wrong.

The essence of my point of view is that I don't just want to know your conclusion. I want to know your reasoning process.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
And if enough important people agree that the world is flat? Or that the sun revolves around the earth?

People use capital letters when they want something to impress. I am not impressed by capital letters. One of the things my job sometimes involves is stripping them out.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
That something is accepted by the whole Church is a sign of the Holy Spirit.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
And if enough important people agree that the world is flat? Or that the sun revolves around the earth?

People use capital letters when they want something to impress. I am not impressed by capital letters. One of the things my job sometimes involves is stripping them out.

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They're sometimes used to distinguish between two quite different things, and stripping them away would be vandalism at best.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
And if enough important people agree that the world is flat? Or that the sun revolves around the earth?

People use capital letters when they want something to impress. I am not impressed by capital letters. One of the things my job sometimes involves is stripping them out.

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They're sometimes used to distinguish between two quite different things, and stripping them away would be vandalism at best.

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I don't strip them away if there's a justification for them. I wouldn't strip them away from 'God' versus 'god' when they represent translations of 2 different terms, one a proper noun for a specific deity and one a general class of supernatural beings.

But your elevation of 'tradition' to 'Tradition' lacks that kind of justification. Unless you can properly define THE Tradition, rather than one 'tradition' among many.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I would look to the ecumenical councils. Why are they considered ecumenical? The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church. The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Theotokos was.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I would look to the ecumenical councils. Why are they considered ecumenical? The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church. The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Theotokos was.

---

In fact, I have just discovered that this was explicitly NOT accepted by the whole Church. The First Council of Ephesus. 431 AD. The basis of the schism of the far Eastern churches.

What was all that business about no-one questioning it for 2000 years or so, or at least until after the Reformation? Completely and utterly not true. There were churches that did not accept that Mary was Theotokos, never mind accept that the Theotokos was perpetually virgin.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I would look to the ecumenical councils. Why are they considered ecumenical? The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church. The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Theotokos was.

---

In fact, I have just discovered that this was explicitly NOT accepted by the whole Church. The First Council of Ephesus. 431 AD. The basis of the schism of the far Eastern churches.

What was all that business about no-one questioning it for 2000 years or so, or at least until after the Reformation? Completely and utterly not true. There were churches that did not accept that Mary was Theotokos, never mind accept that the Theotokos was perpetually virgin.

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Some people are wrong. And that's inescapable unless the only way we can see truth is through a self-destroying relativistic lens.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I would look to the ecumenical councils. Why are they considered ecumenical? The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church. The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Theotokos was.

---

In fact, I have just discovered that this was explicitly NOT accepted by the whole Church. The First Council of Ephesus. 431 AD. The basis of the schism of the far Eastern churches.

What was all that business about no-one questioning it for 2000 years or so, or at least until after the Reformation? Completely and utterly not true. There were churches that did not accept that Mary was Theotokos, never mind accept that the Theotokos was perpetually virgin.

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Some people are wrong. And that's inescapable unless the only way we can see truth is through a self-destroying relativistic lens.

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...and this is why I said there was a problem with the idea that the Holy Spirit is around to guard the church against errors.

QED.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

Of course, losing in the Church might just prove that you are a Saint. Just ask Joan of Arc.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I would look to the ecumenical councils. Why are they considered ecumenical? The Filioque was never accepted by the whole Church. The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Theotokos was.

---

In fact, I have just discovered that this was explicitly NOT accepted by the whole Church. The First Council of Ephesus. 431 AD. The basis of the schism of the far Eastern churches.

What was all that business about no-one questioning it for 2000 years or so, or at least until after the Reformation? Completely and utterly not true. There were churches that did not accept that Mary was Theotokos, never mind accept that the Theotokos was perpetually virgin.

Please note, I'm not asserting that the Nestorians were right. I am just pointing out that the 'everyone believed this' form of argument comes crashing down after a few minutes consulting Wikipedia.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
After all, not even Luther thought it decent to dispute Our Lady's perpetual virginity).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
That something is accepted by the whole Church is a sign of the Holy Spirit. I thought I'd already given the reasoning, that the perpetual virginity of Mary has its foundation in who Christ actually is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
After all, not even Luther thought it decent to dispute Our Lady's perpetual virginity).

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The term "decent" in this context is irrelevant and manipulative.

The issue here is truth, not decency, and since the NT says nothing about Mary's perpetual virginity, it is either untrue or unimportant.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
On the say-so of a Bishop of Cyprus, that is evidence of what people believed in Cyprus, but I don't think it makes it compulsory to follow him.

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quote:

---

Within the Orthodox doctrinal teaching on the economy of salvation, Mary's identity, role, and status as Theotokos is acknowledged as indispensable, and is for this reason formally defined as official dogma. The only other Mariological teaching so defined is that of her virginity. Both of these teachings have a bearing on the identity of Jesus Christ. By contrast, certain other Marian beliefs which do not bear directly on the doctrine concerning the person of Jesus (for example, her sinlessness, the circumstances surrounding her conception and birth, her Presentation in the Temple, her continuing virginity following the birth of Jesus, and her death), which are taught and believed by the Orthodox Church (being expressed in the Church's liturgy and patristic writings), are nonetheless not formally defined by the Church, and belief in them is not a precondition for baptism.[citation needed]

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Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :
 
Wikis have a habit of doing that.

Thanks for finding a reliable article that sources the use of "ever virgin" in a document from the Second Council of Constantinople.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
As ever, I am cursed with the ability to see both sides of this one ...

The Protestant part of me, of course, resonates strongly with Orfeo and even Kaplan - whom I would certainly defend against charges of Bibliolatry against loggats ...

And yet, and yet ...

I don't think it's fair to say that Protestants worship a Book - that's grist for another thread - but I think it is true that we can be inclined to elevate our own individual or idiosyncratic interpretations and/or experiences to an almost Papal or personal Magisterial level at times.

I can understand the wariness and why Protestants are reluctant to accept Tradition with a Big T. It narrows down the options, it can stultefy creativity and yes, Ad Orientem, innovation.

I have no problem whatsover with the idea that both what are now the RC and Orthodox - and the Oriental Orthodox - Churches are the inheritors of an apostolic tradition passed down from the earliest times. No problem whatsoever.

But that's different to the assertion that there was no change or development over that time. At a conservative estimate some scholars have suggested that there were around 30-40 discernible variations on Christianity in the first few centuries - some were unitarian, some were Gnostic, some incredibly batty indeed and some were what came to prevail as Orthodox (or Catholic, the terms being coterminous back then).

Personally - and I have to say that being a Protestant - I think that the fact that ALL the Churches that trace their ancestry back to the Patristic era and the formulation of the Creeds are apparently agreed on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary does attest to the antiquity of the belief. It couldn't have arisen spontaneously in churches across the Roman world at that time without precedent.

Ok, I know that leaves groups like the Nestorians out in the cold, but they were iffy about other issues too.

I find myself drawn to Rowan Williams's 'Paleo-Orthodoxy' - an acceptance of the pan-orthodox beliefs of the Pre-Schism (and probably pre-5th century) Christian Church. This means that I face the dilemma of combining that with a degree of what we might call Protestant selectivity.

Even if we get around that and say that we accept it all - Perpetual Virginity included - that still leaves us with the dilemma of whether the RCs, Orthodox or Copts/Armenians etc have got the monopoly on the TruthTM.
 

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Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The issue here is truth, not decency, and since the NT says nothing about Mary's perpetual virginity, it is either untrue or unimportant.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
After all, not even Luther thought it decent to dispute Our Lady's perpetual virginity).

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The term "decent" in this context is irrelevant and manipulative.

The issue here is truth, not decency, and since the NT says nothing about Mary's perpetual virginity, it is either untrue or unimportant.

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Christ founded a Church, He didn't say anything about worshiping a book.

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quote:

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St Joan of Arc was executed by the English authorities, and later beatified by the Catholic Church.

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Just as Jesus was executed by the Romans and the Sanhedrin had nothing to do with it.

Joan was tried under the auspices of Bishop Cauchon for trial by Church law, and then handed over to the English for secular trial and finally execution for heresy. Ironically, the best they could do to get her to the stake was to charge her with going back to wearing men's clothing after agreeing to wear women's garb. That her English, male guards had stolen her female clothing cut no ice with her judges when they accused her of "abjuring".

Later the RCC back-pedaled. I don't think she is even titled a Martyr, just a Virgin. It's a bit embarrassing since the Church was involved in aiding the martyrdom.

[ 04. May 2013, 09:29: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Aussie iconoclasm is well known.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Enoch, this has a bit on the councils and the PVOM. See the part titled "Church Fathers and the Middle Ages."

Ah. This article claims the following: "The expression 'ever virgin' was taken up by the Second Council of Constantinople (553), which affirms: the Word of God, 'incarnate of the holy and glorious Mother of God and ever virgin Mary, was born of her' (DS 422)."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Married to whom?

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Joseph of course!
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Kaplan, I am teasing ... I am well aware of the Anzac thing ... I could say more but it would be a tangent ... It'd be good to discuss though. I have some theories which you may or may not appreciate ... I'm intrigued, for instance, how some of the readings/poems used at Aussie Remembrance Day services are actually enshrined by law ...

It's fascinating ...

Meanwhile, on the Bible/Church thing - both/and not either/or.

'No Bible no Church, no Church no Bible.'
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
What a bizarre thing to say Kaplan Corday. The Church existed for 1500 years before the book according to the book. And the Bride of Christ existed for over a century before the New Testament existed.

(Wherever there is any kind of strong polarization, I strongly polarize against it and wish to repudiate that as well. (And yes, I've just decided on Oxford and not Cambridge after going Cambridge's way because Oxford doesn't have the courage of its convictions))

As for extra-canonical (the 27 books WE all agree on) Marianism (a hostile looking word), WE will never agree, CAN never agree and those disagreements cannot, MUST NOT be disrespected in the 'other', no matter how 'other' the 'other' wants to, has to be. No matter how hostile. BECAUSE of how IRREVOCABLY, implacably hostile.

Otherwise how shall all men know that we love one another?

Several years ago here in Purgatory a group of Marianists came together over THEIR Schism to say how sorry they felt for low candle Prods for not having Mary as they do.

Now THAT is hostile.

And I reacted to it in typical low candle Proddery (ooooh, the etymology! And no, you don't get it) by saying that I didn't see any of what they were talking about in the Bible.

Now THAT was hostile. It felt wrong then but there was a but. There isn't now.

I'm sorry.

My counter-hostility was not true counter-to-hostility. At was just hostility. And it could not provoke good works. It didn't.

It's taken years and the Holy Spirit in Brian McLaren above all for me to be granted repentance (mealy mouthed admittedly mousethief) of that.

And I have no expectation of my longing to be met.

That we love one another.
 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo
I'd actually be quite interested in hearing proper arguments for and against the filioque clause, for example, but I don't hold high hopes of getting such arguments on this thread.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Married to whom?

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Joseph of course!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What a bizarre thing to say Kaplan Corday. The Church existed for 1500 years before the book according to the book. And the Bride of Christ existed for over a century before the New Testament existed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Married to whom?

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Joseph of course!

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No. They were only betrothed, not actually married.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo
The question is no different. Is getting betrothed consistent with having already dedicated yourself to virginity in Jewish culture?

Because in Christian culture it isn't. Priests and nuns do not get engaged any more than they get married. The point I am making does not depend on whether or not the wedding ceremony had actually taken place yet.

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Excellent point.
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
@Ad Orientem: "Eh?" eh?

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Married to whom?

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Joseph of course!

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No. They were only betrothed, not actually married.

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The question is no different. Is getting betrothed consistent with having already dedicated yourself to virginity in Jewish culture?

Because in Christian culture it isn't. Priests and nuns do not get engaged any more than they get married. The point I am making does not depend on whether or not the wedding ceremony had actually taken place yet.

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quote:

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Chapter 8

(1) And her parents went down, marveling at and praising and glorifying the Lord God because the child had not turned back to look at them. (2) While Mary was in the temple of the Lord, she was fed like a dove and received food from the hand of an angel.
(3) When she turned twelve, a group of priests took counsel together, saying, "Look, Mary has been in the temple of the Lord twelve years. (4) What should we do about her now, so that she does not defile the sanctuary of the Lord our God?" (5) And they said to the high priest, "You have stood at the altar of the Lord. Go in and pray about her. And if the Lord God reveals anything to you, we will do it."

(6) And the priest went in taking the vestment with twelve bells into the holy of holies and prayed about her. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord stood before him, saying, "Zachariah, Zachariah, depart from here and gather the widowers of the people and let each one carry a staff. (8) And the one whom the Lord God points out with a sign, she will be his wife." (9) So the heralds went out to the whole surrounding area of Judea and the trumpet of the Lord rang out and all the men rushed in.



Chapter 9

(1) Throwing down his ax, Joseph went out to meet them. (2) And after they had gathered together with their rods, they went to the high priest. (3) After receiving everyone's rod, the high priest went into the temple and prayed. (4) When he was finished with the prayer, he took the rods and went out and gave them to each man, (5) but there was no sign among them. Finally, Joseph took his rod. (6) Suddenly, a dove came out of the rod and stood on Joseph's head. (7) And the high priest said, "Joseph! Joseph! You have been chosen by lot to take the virgin into your own keeping."

(8) And Joseph replied, saying, "I have sons and am old, while she is young. I will not be ridiculed among the children of Israel."

(9) And the high priest said, "Joseph, fear the Lord your God and remember what God did to Dathan and Abiron and Kore, how the earth split open and swallowed them because of their rebellion. (10) Now fear God, Joseph, so that these things do not happen in your house."

(11) Fearing God, Joseph took her into his own possession. (12) And he said to her, "Mary, I took you from the temple of the Lord and now I bring you into my house. I am going out to build houses, but I will come back to you. The Lord will protect you."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The canonical ecumenical one. The one we overlap on. The one that is a subset of the ones that has things in it nobody else agrees on as they're tribal.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Protoevangelium of James gives the answer.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Protoevangelium of James gives the answer.

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It would be helpful if you spelt things out more than this, rather than assuming that your Protestant audience has the Protoevangelium of James committed to memory.

Is this the same thing that Barnabas has just quoted from?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Zach82: There is an alternative to that false dichotomy.

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By all means spell it out.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
It is, orfeo. It is an interesting source (though not the only one) of the Orthodox Tradition re Mary and Joseph.

The boundary between canonical and non-canonical is not so sharply defined if you believe that the Church is the guardian of Apostolic belief, rather than the canon is the guardian of church belief.

This is an obvious point, but easily overlooked.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Aye orfeo. I was going to say that anadromously. It all depends on your non-ecumenical canon. One cannot escape hostility can one ? Whatever we have to believe is our narrative, including our non-canonical or extra/super/supra/led in to all truth-canonical canons.

And Zach82, eh ? One cannot escape dichotomies can one ? And ALL are false I suspect.

And Ad Orientem, what ?
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Obviously getting betrothed isn't the same as being dedicated to virginity. At least, not normally. But according to the Infancy Gospel again, this was far from a normal betrothal.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
There's an anachronism at work, orfeo. The canon simply did not have the same significance at that time as it does for protestants, following the Reformation. It was a part of the "normalising" processes, a significant part, but not the only part.

The Ecumenical Councils are the demonstration of the fact that when there were disputes over the nature and meaning of the Apostolic Tradition, they were not just resolved by what was in the canon. If that were so, for example, the Creeds would not have assumed the importance they did; the exact wordings would not have been fought over so fiercely.

The issue was protecting the "faith once given" from heresy. This wasn't just a matter of exegesis from texts, but people meeting and wrestling over what was right. Under political pressure as well. How well was the Church exercising its God-given guardianship over the faithful deposit left by the Apostles. Reason, scripture, politics, horse-trading, formations of alliances, denigration, even sheer skullduggery, were all a part of the Ecumenical Council processes. There were power-battles going on as well.

Early church history is fascinating stuff, but you do have to adopt a historical-critical approach to the record to "decode it". Well, at least IMO. But then as someone who sees great value in that approach, I would say that.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
At least some sources in favour of perpetual virginity argue that Mary had already dedicated herself to virginity - before Gabriel turned up.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Is getting betrothed consistent with having already dedicated yourself to virginity in Jewish culture?

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
So I'm aware it was a gradual process. But while the precise boundary of 'canon' and 'not canon' took time to fix, the general ranking of 'most reliable' through to 'least reliable' is often pretty consistent.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What a bizarre thing to say Kaplan Corday. The Church existed for 1500 years before the book according to the book. And the Bride of Christ existed for over a century before the New Testament existed.

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The church's "birthday" is usually recognised as Pentecost, circa 30AD,

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quote:

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Pentecost is NOT ‘the birthday of the church’. To say that it is to rubbish Judaism. The root of the word ‘church;’ – ecclesia, means ‘called out.’ And God has been calling people out of situations long before the time of Jesus, Abraham for example. Diarmaid MacCulloch’s History of Christianity begins further back than Abraham, with the Ancient Greeks and their concept of the Logos.....‘Church’ in Greek is ‘ecclesia’. It translates the Hebrew ‘qahal’. The ‘church’ is found in:

2 Chron. 23:3: ‘All the congregation (qahal) made a covenant with the king.’ The Septuagint translates the qahal, ‘ecclesia Iouda’, ‘the church of Judah’, adding this explanatory word which isn’t in English versions – to show that ‘ecclesia’ now referred to embraced the Jews only.

After the return from Babylon, qahal/ecclesia is used of those Jews who returned – Ezra 2:64; Neh. 5:13; 7:66; 8:17. They were all that was left of the original ‘ecclesia’. (For more detail, see http://www.orange-street-church.org/text/israel.htm)

It is REnewal, not NEW. So Ephesians 3:16: This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

Theologically, the Orthodox do not consider Pentecost to be the “birthday” of the Church; they see the Church as having existed before the creation of the world (cf. The Shepherd of Hermas)

‘It is a common misconception that the church began in Acts 2 …..Peter preached the first gospel message and 3,000 responded in faith and were baptized. But if you asked them what they were doing, they would not think they were starting something new. Rather, they believed they were fulfilling their destiny as the people of God by accepting their own Messiah in fidelity to the covenant of Abraham. They moved forward by going back to their ordained roots. They were not the church as opposed to Israel, but the church as the manifestation of God’s plan for Israel. Pentecost neither started the church nor ended the nation. Rather, it continued the tradition, writing a new chapter in the eschatological history of God. In other words, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit did not create something new but renewed something old.’ http://markmoore.org/330/2009/06/pentecost-is-not-birthday-of-church.html

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
At least some sources in favour of perpetual virginity argue that Mary had already dedicated herself to virginity - before Gabriel turned up.

---

To me this is the missing piece that explains why she would be confused when told she was going to have a child.

"You're going to have a child."
"I'm a virgin."
"Well, yes, but you won't be forever."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
So I'm aware it was a gradual process. But while the precise boundary of 'canon' and 'not canon' took time to fix, the general ranking of 'most reliable' through to 'least reliable' is often pretty consistent.

---

Was "reliability" the yardstick (metrestick) the people who were wrangling about the canon were using? I don't remember ever reading that to be the case. Apostolicity in the very narrow sense of "written by an apostle" was far more the order of the day. Partly because "reliability" is something of a modern concept, and partly because nobody at the time would have denied that some of writings we now call the "Apostolic Fathers" were anything other than 100% reliable.

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quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Why is dedication to virginity being characterised as 'weird'? I posted a link to a source earlier on in this thread where Jewish sources were used to show that a group of consecrated virgins with Temple duties existed, well into the Second Temple period.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
At least some sources in favour of perpetual virginity argue that Mary had already dedicated herself to virginity - before Gabriel turned up.

---

To me this is the missing piece that explains why she would be confused when told she was going to have a child.

"You're going to have a child."
"I'm a virgin."
"Well, yes, but you won't be forever."

or

"You're going to have a child."
"Cool, so you're saying I'll be married soon?"

Absent something weird like dedication to virginity, telling a sexually mature 1st century Palestinian Jewish girl she was going to have a child is hardly earth-shattering, and certainly not confusing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
Why is dedication to virginity being characterised as 'weird'? I posted a link to a source earlier on in this thread where Jewish sources were used to show that a group of consecrated virgins with Temple duties existed, well into the Second Temple period.

---

Speaking personally, I didn't characterise dedication to virginity as being weird. I characterised being simultaneously dedicated to permanent virginity and being betrothed to be married as weird. The point is the juxtaposition, not either thing on its own.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
At least some sources in favour of perpetual virginity argue that Mary had already dedicated herself to virginity - before Gabriel turned up.

---

To me this is the missing piece that explains why she would be confused when told she was going to have a child.

"You're going to have a child."
"I'm a virgin."
"Well, yes, but you won't be forever."

or

"You're going to have a child."
"Cool, so you're saying I'll be married soon?"

Absent something weird like dedication to virginity, telling a sexually mature 1st century Palestinian Jewish girl she was going to have a child is hardly earth-shattering, and certainly not confusing.

---

As MartinPC has picked up, telling her she is going to have a child NOW is earth-shattering. There's a world of difference between someone rocking up and saying "I see 4 children in your future" and someone rocking up and saying "congratulations, you're about to have a bun in the oven".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
Why is dedication to virginity being characterised as 'weird'? I posted a link to a source earlier on in this thread where Jewish sources were used to show that a group of consecrated virgins with Temple duties existed, well into the Second Temple period.

---

Speaking personally, I didn't characterise dedication to virginity as being weird. I characterised being simultaneously dedicated to permanent virginity and being betrothed to be married as weird. The point is the juxtaposition, not either thing on its own.

---

The juxtaposition is strange, but what about the situation isn't rather odd? A virgin gives birth to the Son of God, and she's protected (not least from a society unable to understand her consecrated virginity before, during and after the birth of her son) by a man divinely directed in his capacity as guardian.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
At least some sources in favour of perpetual virginity argue that Mary had already dedicated herself to virginity - before Gabriel turned up.

---

To me this is the missing piece that explains why she would be confused when told she was going to have a child.

"You're going to have a child."
"I'm a virgin."
"Well, yes, but you won't be forever."

or

"You're going to have a child."
"Cool, so you're saying I'll be married soon?"

Absent something weird like dedication to virginity, telling a sexually mature 1st century Palestinian Jewish girl she was going to have a child is hardly earth-shattering, and certainly not confusing.

---

As MartinPC has picked up, telling her she is going to have a child NOW is earth-shattering. There's a world of difference between someone rocking up and saying "I see 4 children in your future" and someone rocking up and saying "congratulations, you're about to have a bun in the oven".

---

But these aren't bits of random dialogue or snatches of overheard conversation. They are divinely inspired theological statements, and have a quality beyond the quite pedestrian readings that seem to be popular in a lot of the exegesis I've read here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
Why is dedication to virginity being characterised as 'weird'? I posted a link to a source earlier on in this thread where Jewish sources were used to show that a group of consecrated virgins with Temple duties existed, well into the Second Temple period.

---

Speaking personally, I didn't characterise dedication to virginity as being weird. I characterised being simultaneously dedicated to permanent virginity and being betrothed to be married as weird. The point is the juxtaposition, not either thing on its own.

---

The juxtaposition is strange, but what about the situation isn't rather odd? A virgin gives birth to the Son of God, and she's protected (not least from a society unable to understand her consecrated virginity before, during and after the birth of her son) by a man divinely directed in his capacity as guardian.

---

The point doesn't seem to have registered so I'm going to spell it out: ANYONE being betrothed and dedicated to virginity at the same time is odd, BEFORE any angels rock up to announce divine pregnancies.

Understand? It is inherently odd. Not odd because it is part of a miraculous story. It is an odd setting for the miraculous story in the first place.

It is almost developing into a suggestion that God's entire plan for the salvation of mankind would have foundered if there wasn't a girl who did something completely and utterly strange. As if no 'mere' dedicated virgin would do, only the one who went and got herself engaged into the bargain as well.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by loggats:
Well, no other female would have done - that much is true. Only Mary, the immaculate conception.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
Well, no other female would have done - that much is true. Only Mary, the immaculate conception.

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This is a whole other doctrine, but it again has the flavour of telling women that there's something wrong with them.

Because apparently God can come down and live amongst sinful human beings for over 30 years, and eat with them and drink with them and touch them, but being in a sin-affected womb is just too icky for God to contemplate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
No man was immaculately conceived (born with sanctifying grace) either, only Mary of all humanity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
No man was immaculately conceived (born with sanctifying grace) either, only Mary of all humanity.

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Jesus?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
No man was immaculately conceived (born with sanctifying grace) either, only Mary of all humanity.

---

Jesus?

---

Jesus isn't a creature, He is Begotten not made.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by loggats:
No man was immaculately conceived (born with sanctifying grace) either, only Mary of all humanity.

---

Jesus?

---

Jesus isn't a creature, He is Begotten not made.

---

I'm sure there's a label for suggesting that Jesus is not part of humanity. I just don't have the recall necessary to identify which label it is. But I'm darn sure that the RCC was one of the churches that affirmed that Jesus was fully human.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Jesus in his divinity is not a creature. I can't recall if calling Jesus' humanity a creature is any particular controversy- I don't think so.

---

Always liked this.

(There's a particularly nice formula written by a priest called Dermot Dwyer, RIP:

He was born into eternity of a Father without a mother.
He was born into time of a Mother without a father.
He is born into us at Baptism.)

[ 05. May 2013, 00:51: Message edited by: loggats ]
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
In any case, while I am sceptical about Mary's perpetual virginity, my concerns are not, I think insurmountable. Immaculate Conception, however, suffers from a far more profound problem of logic - specifically, any assertion that the Immaculate Conception was necessary (rather than God engaging in a bit of neat symbolism).

I have to head out so I can't write this out in full, but put simply the logic problem is this: if God can take an ordinary human mother (Anna) and prevent her child from being touched by original sin (Mary), then it is demonstrably false that Jesus needed to be born to a non-ordinary mother in order to evade the stain of original sin.
 

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Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 

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Originally posted by loggats:
Why is dedication to virginity being characterised as 'weird'? I posted a link to a source earlier on in this thread where Jewish sources were used to show that a group of consecrated virgins with Temple duties existed, well into the Second Temple period.

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Jesus in his divinity is not a creature. I can't recall if calling Jesus' humanity a creature is any particular controversy- I don't think so.

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Originally posted by leo:
Diarmaid MacCulloch’s History of Christianity begins further back than Abraham, with the Ancient Greeks and their concept of the Logos.....‘Church’ in Greek is ‘ecclesia’. It translates the Hebrew ‘qahal’. The ‘church’ is found in:

Theologically, the Orthodox do not consider Pentecost to be the “birthday” of the Church; they see the Church as having existed before the creation of the world (cf. The Shepherd of Hermas)

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It was actually 367, in Athansius's Pascahal Letter, before the NT canon as we recognise it was set out, but the truths and events described in it gave birth to the church,

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Zach82:
Jesus in his divinity is not a creature. I can't recall if calling Jesus' humanity a creature is any particular controversy- I don't think so.

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It kinda has to be, since it is derived entirely from Mary, and there was a time when she was not.

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"Let earth and heaven combine,
Angels and men agree,
To praise in songs divine
The incarnate Deity,
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man".

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I have to head out so I can't write this out in full, but put simply the logic problem is this: if God can take an ordinary human mother (Anna) and prevent her child from being touched by original sin (Mary), then it is demonstrably false that Jesus needed to be born to a non-ordinary mother in order to evade the stain of original sin.

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... by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind...

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It was actually 367, in Athansius's Pascahal Letter, before the NT canon as we recognise it was set out, but the truths and events described in it gave birth to the church,

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Nonsense. The Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church. The HS is not a set of propositions or words on paper, but God.

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Originally posted by orfeo
I have to head out so I can't write this out in full, but put simply the logic problem is this: if God can take an ordinary human mother (Anna) and prevent her child from being touched by original sin (Mary), then it is demonstrably false that Jesus needed to be born to a non-ordinary mother in order to evade the stain of original sin.

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Originally posted by loggats:
You might be thinking of Arianism. The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus is indeed a human being. But he is not a human person. Mary was both!

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It was actually 367, in Athansius's Pascahal Letter, before the NT canon as we recognise it was set out, but the truths and events described in it gave birth to the church,

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Nonsense. The Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church. The HS is not a set of propositions or words on paper, but God.

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False dichotomy.

The Holy Spirit is certainly God, and not a nebulous influence, and is therefore concerned with truth, whether couched propositionally or otherwise.

The church was formed on the basis of events and truths of which the Holy Spirit is the fons et origo, and which he enacted in the formation of the church.

The fact that He had not yet inspired them to be written down as "words on paper" did not mean that they did not yet exist.

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So the church was based on disembodied, not-yet-written-down words or facts? This seems like forcing the data to fit the theory. The argument runs like this:

Protestant: The Church is based on the New Testament.
Catholic or Orthodox: The Church existed years before the New Testament was written, let alone selected and compiled.
Protestant: Well, it was based on the words that would one day get written down. It was the New Testament, and it was really there, it just hadn't made it onto the papyrus yet.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Last one for Protestant:

The best witness we have to the early church is the New Testament. So the talk of the early church as separate from it is misleading.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I don't think all Protestants would put it that way, MT, but I would concede that all of us Prots - of whatever stripe - have a self interest in maintaining a very low ecclesiology, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to justify our 'heretickal conventicles'

Equally, it's in the interests of the RCs and the Orthodox to maintain a very High ecclesiology. It works both ways.

Which is why Anglicans have always tried to find a via media on this as on much else. Not always successfully, of course ...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Jengie - well yes ... the two go together, of course, it's misleading to separate them out and put scripture and Church in opposition to each other ... which makes things rather interesting when it comes to the Reformation and subsequent developments of course ... which brings us back round to where we've started ...
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
In that case this post-Protestant is in full agreement with those united by Schism. Can I come for tea?
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

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Originally posted by Trisagion:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I have to head out so I can't write this out in full, but put simply the logic problem is this: if God can take an ordinary human mother (Anna) and prevent her child from being touched by original sin (Mary), then it is demonstrably false that Jesus needed to be born to a non-ordinary mother in order to evade the stain of original sin.

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The logic isn't at fault, Orfeo, its just that on of the premises you are trying to match it to is. Jesus did not need to be born at all, let alone to a non-ordinary (whatever that means, unless you are suggesting sin is a necessary part of humanity) mother. It is simply how God chose to redeem us.

On a point of clarification about the Immaculate Conception: the definition of the dogma makes clear that it took place

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... by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind...

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loggats wrote: Interesting bit about "consecrated virgins" - quoted from the Jewish Encyclopedia. Apologies for the length but if you're interested in this, it's worth reading:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
One priest put the Immaculate Conception this way, "What we receive in baptism in terms of grace, Mary received at her conception."

Understood this way, Mary experienced all that we experience in our regeneration. The only unique thing is that she received it from the very beginning while we received it at our baptism.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
For you loggats, which is fine. It doesn't translate. Only to 1:1000. It's a fact for you and cradle Romans and the tiny percentage of converts. God bless you with it. Is it a basis for exclusion ?

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It's a dogma and as such is accepted (I see no reason to assume lots of Catholics deny it anyway) by a Church of 1.2 billion souls.

According to the Baltimore Catechism, "Q. 554. Could a person who denies only one article of our faith be a Catholic? — A. A person who denies even one article of our faith could not be a Catholic; for truth is one and we must accept it whole and entire or not at all."

But I'm sure Rahner found an elegant way around that, so don't you worry.
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
One priest put the Immaculate Conception this way, "What we receive in baptism in terms of grace, Mary received at her conception."

Understood this way, Mary experienced all that we experience in our regeneration. The only unique thing is that she received it from the very beginning while we received it at our baptism.

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Originally posted by Enoch:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
One priest put the Immaculate Conception this way, "What we receive in baptism in terms of grace, Mary received at her conception."

Understood this way, Mary experienced all that we experience in our regeneration. The only unique thing is that she received it from the very beginning while we received it at our baptism.

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That's an interesting idea, but I don't think that's how it's generally understood. We (speaking from personal experience here) do not become without sin from our baptisms. We may be accounted worthy, but I don't think that is what is usually meant by saying that Mary was Immaculate.

Logatts, this is a different topic and a more controversial one, but having disagreed with you about Apollinarianism, I also don't understand 'grace' the way I think you might. If I read you correctly, you are thinking of grace as a sort of invisible substance, rather like electricity or the oil that runs down Aaron's beard, something that almost has a life of its own, with it's own rules, that one can tap into. I know there's a long tradition of thinking of grace that way, both among Catholics and Protestants - possibly Orthodox too but I don't know enough about Orthodox teaching on the subject to comment. It may be something they regard as a typical Western error.

However, I think it is more helpful to see grace not as a sort of spiritual commodity, but as part of God's personality, the way He is, the way His love plays out.

Another tip, by the way. If you are hoping to persuade Protestants, it's not a very good idea to quote from Encyclicals or the Baltimore Catechism as though their authority is inherent. If they put something particularly well, fine. Likewise if you want to explain what the Catholic view is. But if you want to persuade Protestants from authority, you need to use scripture, the creeds or the collective witness of a number of authorities in a way that is compatible with scripture. Otherwise, it would be like me telling you, based on the laws of England, that it is illegal to wander around carrying a firearm, when you are somewhere else.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Orthodox will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Enoch's onto something. I've heard the Orthodox criticise Western Christianity - both RC and Protestant - for effectively turning grace into some kind of commodity rather than something that is part and parcel of God's nature.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Orthodox will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Enoch's onto something. I've heard the Orthodox criticise Western Christianity - both RC and Protestant - for effectively turning grace into some kind of commodity rather than something that is part and parcel of God's nature.

On the thing about references to the Baltimore whatever-it-was and various Papal encyclicals and son on ... well, yes, I think Enoch's right there too. It would be like Jengie Jon or another Reformed Christian citing The Westminster Confession as a truth universally acknowledged by all Christians or an Anglican doing the same with the 39 Articles ... or a hyper-Calvinist citing Dort as something binding upon almost everyone else.

I'm being a big cheeky there ...

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Orthodox will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Enoch's onto something. I've heard the Orthodox criticise Western Christianity - both RC and Protestant - for effectively turning grace into some kind of commodity rather than something that is part and parcel of God's nature.

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You'd be right. A classic example would be "low mass" where a number of priests each celebrating their own private mass is believed to have more worth, more value in terms of grace, than a number of priests concelebrating one mass. Until quite recently it was not uncommon to see a number of priests each celebrating their own private mass at their own side altar mumbling away a mass stripped to its bare minimum.

http://conciliaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/08_11_26_masses.jpg

To the Orthodox mind this is just odd.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It was actually 367, in Athansius's Pascahal Letter, before the NT canon as we recognise it was set out, but the truths and events described in it gave birth to the church,

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Nonsense. The Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church. The HS is not a set of propositions or words on paper, but God.

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False dichotomy.

The Holy Spirit is certainly God, and not a nebulous influence, and is therefore concerned with truth, whether couched propositionally or otherwise.

The church was formed on the basis of events and truths of which the Holy Spirit is the fons et origo, and which he enacted in the formation of the church.

The fact that He had not yet inspired them to be written down as "words on paper" did not mean that they did not yet exist.

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So the church was based on disembodied, not-yet-written-down words or facts? This seems like forcing the data to fit the theory. The argument runs like this:

Protestant: The Church is based on the New Testament.
Catholic or Orthodox: The Church existed years before the New Testament was written, let alone selected and compiled.
Protestant: Well, it was based on the words that would one day get written down. It was the New Testament, and it was really there, it just hadn't made it onto the papyrus yet.

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