Sadly, I still haven't had time to properly respond to Ed Heckman's difficulties with the Church's beliefs concerning Mary. I did get one answer to my call for rebuttals from the peanut gallery. Here's Anonymous' defense of Marian doctrines. The opinions expressed by him/her may or may not reflect my beliefs or the beliefs of the Church.
1. Ed's first point is that Mary cannot be the most perfect example of human faithfulness because: a) she's no more faithful than Abraham; and b) she seems to have had doubts over the course of Christ's life.
In response, I would note that: a) Before God asked Abraham to be faithful, He promised Abraham a number of rewards for faithfulness. See Gen. 17. But He promised nothing to Mary directly, yet she was nevertheless willing to do his will. See Luke 1. Being faithful without knowing what the consequences will be is better than being faithful for a reward.
And b) the doubts that Mary had were not, as Ed claims, evidence of a weak faith; they were tests of faith that Mary passed. Simeon warned Mary that "you yourself a sword will pierce," Luke 2:35, and his prophecy came true in each of the instances Ed cites. See this.
2. Ed's second point is that Mary cannot rightly be considered a sinless "New Eve" because: a) she calls God her Savior in Luke 1, and the sinless do not need a savior; and b) there is no explicit scriptural support for Mary as a sinless "New Eve."
In response, I would note that: a) you can "save" people in two ways: getting them out of trouble, or keeping them from getting into it in the first place. Knocking someone out of the path of a speeding car saves that person just as much as providing medical care in the event that he is hit. God saved Mary from sin by keeping her from it; he saves us from sin by getting us out of it.
And b) Ed is right that there is no explicit scriptural support for calling Mary a sinless "New Eve." But this is not a problem for Catholics, who don't demand explicit scriptural support in the way that Protestants do. Catholics believe that the Church came before the Bible in that it preached before the Bible was written, and it chose the Books that were to become part of the Bible (choosing the synoptic Gospels over the gnostic ones, etc.). For this reason, the Church can proclaim a doctrine without explicit scripural support, for the Bible is a creature of the Church, and not the other way round.
It seems Jay is having similar discussions at Deo Omnis Gloria.
Linguistic Issues Regarding the Perpetual Virginity of Mary [regarding Jesus' "brothers"]
Linguistic Issues Regarding the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, Part II [regarding Joseph not knowing Mary "until" Jesus' birth]
Funky Dung
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I'm not sure anyone will even read this, but here goes anyway. The Bible is most assuredly not the creature of the church. The Bible is the living Word of God, spoken, maintained, protected, and passed to us by His active or passive agency. The church is the Bride of Christ, not the keeper of the word, nor the repository of all answers, nor key to all mysteries, and maybe not even the extent of His creation. We (the church) are certainly the apple of His eye, but we do not translate for Him nor keep Him from speaking or acting as He would. If the church ( or religeon, or truth, for that matter) were simply a construct of our collective imagination created to satiate some deep-seated psychological need then I would understand this point of view, but we are not. The church did not come before the Word.
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Posted 22 Feb 2005 at 5:43 am ¶Sibert:
Depends on what you understand "creature" to mean. It's true that the Church did not write the Bible — God did that, albeit through human hands. Yet it's also true that the Church "created" the Bible in that She recognized which books were divinely insprired (e.g., Hebrews) and which were not (e.g., Gospel of Thomas), and placed the books into the order we use today.
It's worth noting that while you are right to say that the Church does not and cannot keep God from "acting as He would," God has nevertheless chosen to act through the Church (e.g., giving the keys to Peter, telling the Apostles to perform the sacraments "in memory of me," etc.). I don't know why the Word decided to become flesh, but He did.
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Posted 22 Feb 2005 at 2:15 pm ¶I partially agree with you. She, the bride, put the Bible together under the guidance of God. Would you give a third grader credit for building an atomic bomb as his science fair project knowing that his dad was a nuclear physicist? The kid doesn't even understand 90% of what he is being directed to do. That is, I think, an appropriate analogy. She would not have recognized anything without divine guidance. I think if you could ask any of the men working on that project, they would have conceded this.
You are right in saying that God acts through His church, but He has also given us a specific assignment. He also acts thru the lost, through circumstances, through a talking donkey if He wants to!
My beef was probably just with a regetable choice of words. I object to calling the Bible the creature of the church because it is not, and woe to us if it is. Anyway, God bless.
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Posted 22 Feb 2005 at 6:38 pm ¶I agree that the Church did not create, so much as consruct, scripture (think of a blueprint, sorta). But I still maintain that to say that the Church did not predate scripture is just silly. What was the case in between the Christ's life and the writing of scripture? Was there no church then? Was the church founded only after the scriptures were compiled?
I can't help but think that this model was invented by the Reformers to justify the lack of true teaching for the 1500 years between Christ's life and the Reformation. I may be wrong, but it seems that way to me.
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Posted 24 Feb 2005 at 12:17 am ¶Tom,
The position of the Reformers is that the definition of "church" is everyone who believes in Christ, otherwise known as the body of Christ (Rom 12:5) and the bride of Christ (John 3:29) (Eph 5:23-33). The Roman Catholic Church with the Pope and practices specific to the RCC did not exist until 314 A.D. when it was formed by Constantine.
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Posted 24 Feb 2005 at 3:11 am ¶"The Roman Catholic Church with the Pope and practices specific to the RCC did not exist until 314 A.D. when it was formed by Constantine."
Did you hear that in a Jack Chick tract? Or was it Loraine Boettner? What the heck, man?
Besides, mere "practices" aren't dogmatic anyway. As long as the Church's dogmas and doctrines remain unmolested and not misrepresented, it doesn't matter how the Church practices.
How do you account for the ante-Nicene Fathers speaking of Popes, bishops, the sacrificial liturgy, penance, if the Catholic Church hadn't been formed yet? How do you account for the Letter of Clement? Can you please back up your point, here? I'm interested.
btw, if you're referring to the Edict of Milan, that was in 313, dude. And it nothing to do with establishing a Church. Read the text of it here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/edict-milan.html
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Posted 24 Feb 2005 at 1:52 pm ¶Tom,
I don't know the history nearly well enough to argue the point. I'm merely pointing out what others are saying.
I will be addressing the issue on my blog, but by comparing scripture (which I know well) and The Catechism. I do not have the time or quite frankly, the desire to spend hundreds of hours reading up on history over which there is much controversy.
Here is something to consider though:
First, from the Catholic Encyclopedia: Benedict Levita
Second, Benedict Levita and the Papacy
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Posted 25 Feb 2005 at 6:13 am ¶I read both pages (well, only skimmed the second), but don't see how they undermine the dogmas surrounding the papacy at all. The second page only tackles a few arguments for the papacy, rather than the institution itself. The Von Dollinger quote to me seems the most damning, but it ignores that one of the strongest arguments in favor of Papacy, the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (written AD 96), is not a forgery (there are, I think, 1-2 other letters of Clement that are, though).
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Posted 25 Feb 2005 at 11:54 pm ¶Couldn't it just be that the concentration of ecclesial authority in Rome emerged as a result of the rise of Islam and the estrangement between Rome and Constantinople and maybe a forged "Donation of Constantine" document and the Church allowing the Roman Emperor to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Emperor?
I mean the whole Protestant/Catholic Schism thing came about in large part as a matter of ecclesiology:Who has say-so in the traditions/interpretations of scripture that guide how we as Christians let our lights shine before the world? It may have also had a good deal to do with a desire tithe-relief/land-grabbing in the northern states of Europe, but I generally find trying to debate about Mary's virginity as an exercise in futility because of the whole unnecessary web of associations made with the issue.
For me, that's like so half a millenium ago and of no relevance to the sorts of debates we ought to be having today across denominational boundaries.
dlw
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Posted 28 Feb 2005 at 12:20 am ¶"Couldn't it just be that the concentration of ecclesial authority in Rome emerged as a result of the rise of Islam and the estrangement between Rome and Constantinople and maybe a forged "Donation of Constantine" document and the Church allowing the Roman Emperor to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Emperor?"
But see, all those things occurred after Roman primacy and authority in doctrinal matters were accepted. It is true, though, that the above saw to it that the papacy achieved a more direct control over liturgical and temporal matters, neither of which are an article of faith in the papal doctrines.
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Posted 28 Feb 2005 at 9:00 pm ¶Post a Comment