[De Maria]

I'm making a difference between praying 'to' and asking a prayer 'for'.

To me, that doesn't make sense. Because even when you "pray for" something, you must direct the "prayer to" someone.

So, I will assume the difference you are trying to express is "prayer of adoration" and "prayer of request". Both of those can be addressed to God.

But prayer of adoration can not be addressed to man, whether he be in heaven or on earth.

Asking someone to pray for us:
Does it require us to bow down before that person, close our eyes and talk to him or her what we have on the heart?

Is that required even of adoration to God?

I don't think so. That person is our brother/sister in Christ, and as such, does not require all those preparations. As you said, you can just request him or her to pray for you.

Correct.

Like one of the themes of the year, my Church had, the previous year, 'Passion for God; Compassion for People'. I consider prayer as the 'ultimate' means of communication and for me, I will pray to God only.

That is certainly your choice. We are simply explaining why we pray to the Saints and especially to the Mother of God.

I consider Mary, David, Moses, etc as important people in history but need I know them the way I should know God?

No.

In the same way, should I talk to them the in the same way I talk to God?

No.

If that is so, then, to me this means they are the equal of God, but this I cannot dare think about. :(

But none of us are telling you to think of them or communicate with them the same as you do with God.

We are telling you that there is a difference between adoration for God and reverence for His Children, the Saints.

[dwashbur]

Please quote the verse you are talking about. Because the verse I quoted is in every Bible.

*yawn* Go back and read it. I said every time that the PHRASE is not there. The PHRASE in question is "blessed are you among women." I said several times, and made it as clear as humanly possible, that this PHRASE is not in the original Bible, and is not in the translations I mentioned. Now you're trying to switch it to a verse. That as much as anything else tells me about the games you play. Or are you now trying to claim that the "spirit" of my comments, rather than the "letter," meant the whole verse? You claim to know the "spirit" of the Word better than anyone else here, but basically that shakes out to be "it means what I want it to mean, and if that doesn't coincide with what it actually says, tough."

Go through the thread and count the number of times, since this came up, that I said the PHRASE I was talking about isn't in the original. Maybe instead of trying to manipulate the "spirit" of things to fit your preconceived notions, you should pay a little more attention to what things actually SAY.

And now I really am out of this discussion.

[Athos]

Motherhood doesn't mean creation of a child. A mother doesn't create any life in her womb.

This is news to the world of reproductive biology.

There is no child without the contribution of the mother. To say motherhood does not mean the creation of a child is to use words in ways they were never intended to be used.

God creates the life and places it there. In Mary's case, God didn't put another life into her womb. He placed Himself in there.

No one is saying that God is not the author of all life. Your use of it here simply obfuscates the issue. In this sense, then, ALL children are older than their mother, and every mother, at the same time, is older than her child.

Logical conundrum, anyone?

[Athos]

I don’t find myself convoluted or knot-full. I don’t ‘prove’ my beliefs, they have already been proven for some 2,000 years; I merely expose you to those proofs.

Your first logical fallacy - the argument from authority. (Someone else says something, therefore it is true).

That Mary is the mother of God is quite simple logic – children understand it with ease.

Your first non-sequitur.

Christ means the “anointed” (Isaiah 9:6) and Jesus means “Jehovah is salvation” (Isaiah 7:14), put together we have ‘the anointed who is God,” i.e. man and God.

That's an interpretation - not a proof.

Even a child can see that Christ is One person with Two Natures. I think names identify the character – just a childish little diversion which you probably already knew.

No, I didn't know that, but you're correct - it's childish and hardly a proof.

But, adults put away childish things. So let’s prove...

Yes, please do. So far, you're not doing very well.

... the hypostatic union of Jesus the man and Christ the God. In the beginning of creation there was the Will or the Word of God (Cf. John 1:1-5). Jesus was conjoined with Christ our God in the form of a servant. (Cf. Phil 2-7). Had Jesus Christ been God transformed into God he couldn’t have been killed. (Cf. Acts 3:15).

This hypostatic union can only take place in the womb of Mary at the very instant of conception. If Jesus was made God prior to conception then Jesus Christ is created – God can’t be created. If Christ were made God after conception then Jesus Christ was possessed and not truly in a state of union between two distinct beings. Professing One God, who is three Persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all three must contain one and only one Person. Obviously if God the Son was two Persons with one Nature we wouldn’t have a Trinity; we might have to call God the ‘quadrupity’. But of course that’s silly.

You've muddled this somewhat but I know what you're trying to say.

Now the logic gets even simpler to follow.

Dear God, let's hope so.

Jesus Christ was born of a woman called Mary. Now the woman who bore JoeT is called the ‘mother of JoeT.’ And I bet a thousand bucks, that the woman the bore you is called the ‘mother of you’. Now what’s not funny, is the Mother of Christ is called, theotokos, “the mother of God.” The Child she gave birth to was the hypostatic union of man and God.

The fallacy here is called "tautology" - an attempt to prove a conclusion by restating the premise.

To hold the view that Mary was not the mother of God is akin to the error Nestroianism. The Council of Ephesus rejected Nestorianism in 431 A.D. Nestorius (circa 425 A.D.) held the unorthodox view that the essence(s) of Christ were separated into two natures, separate was the man Jesus and separate was the God that that is Christ. In failing to recognize that Mary is the Mother of God, this leads to the rejection of theotokos (Mother of God) replacing it with (Giving Birth to Christ) khristotokos.

These are statements, not proofs.

To claim that Mary only carried the human nature of Christ is the same error. Mary didn’t give birth to the nature of a man; she didn’t give birth to the nature of God; she gave birth to the person of Jesus Christ, theotokos .

You have misused "theotokos" here. It refers to Mary, not Jesus. But that may be just a typo. You say, "...she didn't give birth to the nature of God..." Exactly my point.

Catholics hold Mary was born Immaculate. Christ was borne of a sinless woman as part of God’s plan foretold by prophesies. God preserved Mary from original sin so that His Justice will prevail; after all the Person to be born was God who abhors the unclean. As he demonstrated in His instructions to Moses. In His infinite mercy God overthrows an infernal serpent through a guiltless Blessed Virgin. Those who eviscerate the Blessed Virgin Mary would subjugate her to Satan; conversely the Catholic faith holds that the Blessed Virgin is singularly preserved, made exempt, from ALL stain of sin original sin or private sin through God’s grace.

Here you are arguing a point not in discussion. That's called a "strawman" argument - another logical fallacy.

St. Paul suggests; “For as by the disobedience of one man [the original sin of Adam], many were made sinners” (Rom 5:19), consequently any man born has this original sin. Christ being man as well as God should have inherited original sin if born of woman. "Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), the Paschal Lamb, the perfect sacrifice. As a result, there can only be solution to this apparent dichotomy, Christ was born of a new Eve whose original sin had been removed. Furthermore, Christ was born of a renewed Eve who hadn’t known sin because to reside within her womb.

For the Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth: A WOMAN SHALL COMPASS A MAN” we see God’s mystical plan, rightly we should conclude that Mary was Immaculate, protected from knowing the sins of Adam, protected from knowing the sins of men. But, how does one COMPASS Christ the man without ENCOMPASSING the God that is the Messiah? At the moment Christ was conceived God was infused; at that same moment Mary’s Womb would have been spiritually cleaned; as clean as any ritual cleansing of the Tabernacle of Moses. [It’s important that we perceive this as an infusion opposed to a junction or injection of God into man.] Thus the Blessed Virgin Mary’s womb became the dwelling place of God, a Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant. This Ark would remain pure as did the Virgin Mary in her life of celibacy. Nestorius believed that that God incarnate with man was a "junction", rather than enosis, that is a ”unification."

You may recall Moses was ordered by God to build a Tabernacle. It contained an outer court and inner court. Along with Ooliab they built the first tabernacle; tradition had every tabernacle built thereafter built in a similar manner. Looking at the Tabernacle from outside towards the inside a wall surrounds the Holy of Holies and the inner courts. Only one gate faces the east, a narrow gate; prefiguring Christ’s warning, “Narrow is the gate of righteousness.” The Ark of the Testimony (Exodus 25:16, 22; 26:33, etc.), the Ark of the Testament (Exodus 30:26), the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord (Numbers 10:33; Deuteronomy 10:8, etc.), the Ark of the Covenant (Joshua 3:6, etc.), the Ark of God (1 Samuel 3:3, etc.), the Ark of the Lord (1 Samuel 4:6, etc.) was one and the same Incarnate Word of God; all of which were to reside in the womb of Mary. Judaism nor Catholicism would suggest that God reside in an unholy place.

Mary, a walking talking Tabernacle, is the birthplace of the Christian faith. We shouldn’t be much surprised when we hold that with Christ’s birth, another wondrous birth occurs; the birth of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Interestingly, St. Jerome would suggest that both Mary and Joseph were sinless,

…that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born. St. Jerome, The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

Where did the Holy Spirit put the New Covenant word? Christ, the New Covenant, was placed in the Ark of the New Covenant, the womb of Mary. God was infused into man to become Christ. At the very moment of conception, within the womb of Mary, Christ, became man. Christ was one person with two natures, one of God, the other of man. Thus after the proper time, Christ was born of Mary as according as foretold by the angel; “Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Jesus. (Luke 1: 31-33) Eventually, He passes through the veil; it’s not rent, but passes like light passes through a window. Christ now becomes like the Menorah (light) of the world, whose Word fell on the Altar of Incense to rise pleasingly to God, whose light fell on the loaves of proposition (The Twelve). Like Noah the Blessed Virgin Mary carries the spotless sacrificial lamb across the waters of death and sin to land our salvation on the shores of a Renewed Kingdom. The Holy Spirit conceived the Church of Jesus Christ. Any less immaculate and Christ could not be considered a spotless, sinless, the Paschal Lamb Jewish tradition demands. Mary being literally full of Grace, we hold that this Tabernacle will never be desecrated.

Mary had to be sinless for the Messiah to be born. More important, failing to recognize the Blessed Virgin Mary as immaculate, as Ever Virgin, as the Mother of God injures the Creed most Christians profess One God, with three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To say that Mary was born with sin means that the ‘Perfect Sacrificial Lamb’ resided in filth and thus having contact with sin couldn’t be ‘perfect’ preventing every Jew of the day from recognizing Christ as God. Dismiss Mary’s virginity is to say that God came from the seed of man and to logically consider God needing to be ‘created’ is too much for logic to bear.

So, yes Mary is the Mother of God. Gosh, I don’t think a knotted a single verse of Holy Scripture. JoeT

Gosh, you sure did. All of the last section quoted does nothing to support your conclusion. You describe, at length, Mary's sinlessness, her Immaculate Conception, you even managed to get Moses in there - none of which is the issue at hand. Then you make a leap to "So, yes Mary is the Mother of God".

Joe, believe what you will, but trying to "prove" issues of faith is a fruitless task. That's why they call it "faith".

[Athos]

Many is not all. It isn't even most.

Some is not all either. And some can explain their beliefs without any convoluted knots. Joe777 for example.

If you prefer "some" articles of faith cannot be explained in human terms, that's fine with me.

No doubt some beliefs can be explained without any "convoluted knots", but Joe's example is not one of them. See my reply to Joe above.

[De Maria]

This is news to the world of reproductive biology.

There is no child without the contribution of the mother. To say motherhood does not mean the creation of a child is to use words in ways they were never intended to be used.

Excuse my error. I was a bit careless with the language. Although the second part of that thought still stands. Here is what I said:

Originally Posted by De Maria View Post
Motherhood doesn't mean creation of a child. A mother doesn't create any life in her womb.

The first part of that is false and I withdraw it. However, it is still true that mothers do not create any life in their womb.

There are many women who long for children and if they knew how to create it themselves, they would. But the creation of children is not a human technology. It is a privilege granted by God. It is God who creates life in the womb.

No one is saying that God is not the author of all life. Your use of it here simply obfuscates the issue. In this sense, then, ALL children are older than their mother, and every mother, at the same time, is older than her child.

On the contrary, because God creates the child in their womb does not lead to the conclusion that the children are older than their mom.

It leads to the simple conclusion that Mary did not create God in Her womb. But God did become flesh in her womb as that was His will.

Logical conundrum, anyone?

Sorry for the first error. I hope that clears things up.

Sincerely,

[Athos]

Excuse my error. I was a bit careless with the language.

I accept your apology.

Although the second part of that thought still stands. Here is what I said:

The first part of that is false and I withdraw it. However, it is still true that mothers do not create any life in their womb.

Au contraire. Unless you mean the mother ALONE. Obviously, the father makes a contribution.

There are many women who long for children and if they knew how to create it themselves, they would. But the creation of children is not a human technology.

It isn't? Are you familiar with sexual reproduction? I'm sure you are, hence my surprise at this statement.

It is a privilege granted by God. It is God who creates life in the womb.

That very well may be, but here you are moving from a logical proof to the realm of faith. This discussion was/is about the logical inconsistency of Mary being the mother of God

On the contrary, because God creates the child in their womb does not lead to the conclusion that the children are older than their mom.

The conclusion was not that children are older than their mothers, it was that both children AND their mothers are each older than the other. THAT is the logical conundrum.

It leads to the simple conclusion that Mary did not create God in Her womb. But God did become flesh in her womb as that was His will.

Faith, not logic.

Sorry for the first error. I hope that clears things up.

Clear as mud.

[De Maria]

I accept your apology.

Au contraire. Unless you mean the mother ALONE. Obviously, the father makes a contribution.

But neither the father or the mother reach into the womb and knit the child. It is God who does that.

It isn't? Are you familiar with sexual reproduction? I'm sure you are, hence my surprise at this statement.

Sexual reproduction is not a human technology. It was not invented by humans. God put that capability in our nature. And even though we have the capability to unite in the act of sex, we do not have the capability even then of making certain that every time we do so, we will conceive a child.

There are millions of couples who want children but have not been able to conceive.

That very well may be, but here you are moving from a logical proof to the realm of faith. This discussion was/is about the logical inconsistency of Mary being the mother of God

Faith does not contradict logic. Mary is the Mother of God because God was enfleshed in her womb. She then gave birth to Him and nursed Him at her breast. Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God.

Your contention that she is not the Mother of God is illogical if you believe that Jesus is God.

If you don't believe that Jesus is God, then your contention becomes logical, but false because it is revealed in the Scriptures that Jesus is God.

The conclusion was not that children are older than their mothers, it was that both children AND their mothers are each older than the other. THAT is the logical conundrum.

I have no idea where you got that. But it certainly wasn't from my explanation.

Faith, not logic.

Faith and logic.

Clear as mud.

That's OK. Jesus used mud to open the blind man's eyes.

[JoeT777]

Your first logical fallacy - the argument from authority. (Someone else says something, therefore it is true).

Your first non-sequitur.

That's an interpretation - not a proof.

No, I didn't know that, but you're correct - it's childish and hardly a proof.

Yes, please do. So far, you're not doing very well.

You've muddled this somewhat but I know what you're trying to say.

Dear God, let's hope so.

The fallacy here is called "tautology" - an attempt to prove a conclusion by restating the premise.

These are statements, not proofs.

You have misused "theotokos" here. It refers to Mary, not Jesus. But that may be just a typo. You say, "...she didn't give birth to the nature of God..." Exactly my point.

Here you are arguing a point not in discussion. That's called a "strawman" argument - another logical fallacy.

Gosh, you sure did. All of the last section quoted does nothing to support your conclusion. You describe, at length, Mary's sinlessness, her Immaculate Conception, you even managed to get Moses in there - none of which is the issue at hand. Then you make a leap to "So, yes Mary is the Mother of God".

Joe, believe what you will, but trying to "prove" issues of faith is a fruitless task. That's why they call it "faith".

There is a lot of ridicule but no real response. If Mary isn’t the Mother of God, how did Jesus the man come to being? How was it that God come to be this man? What is Mary and who is she?

[450donn]

There is a lot of ridicule but no real response. If Mary isn’t the Mother of God, how did Jesus the man come to being? How was it that God come to be this man? What is Mary and who is she?

Mary was only a young woman who was a willing vessel to carry a child to term in her womb. I do not understand how you or anyone can logically claim that Mary was the mother of God? God is eternal is he not? Mary was not eternal. She was born, raised by her parents, betrothed to a man, Joseph, married him while pregnant, gave birth to her first child, Jesus. She subsequently had other children by Joseph and eventually died and is buried here on earth. She is Not some deity, nor is she some saint, or idol that should be worshiped. She is fully and wholly human.

[Unknown008]

Mary was only a young woman who was a willing vessel to carry a child to term in her womb. I do not understand how you or anyone can logically claim that Mary was the mother of God? God is eternal is he not? Mary was not eternal. She was born, raised by her parents, betrothed to a man, Joseph, married him while pregnant, gave birth to her first child, Jesus. She subsequently had other children by Joseph and eventually died and is buried here on earth. She is Not some deity, nor is she some saint, or idol that should be worshiped. She is fully and wholly human.

I completely agree with this statement :)

[Fr_Chuck]

Well she is a "saint" reconised as such by the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, some Lutherans *** so bascily the majority of all christians see her as a saint. Along with other great Christians leaders

And of course the "facts" her her other children has no more proof than other traditions.

[De Maria]

Mary was only a young woman who was a willing vessel to carry a child to term in her womb. I do not understand how you or anyone can logically claim that Mary was the mother of God?

If you believe that Jesus is God, then the logic is inescapable. If you don't, then I can see why you can't understand that logic.

God is eternal is he not? Mary was not eternal.

We don't claim that Mary created God. We recognize the revealed fact that Mary carried Jesus in her womb and gave birth to Him. And Jesus is God.

She was born, raised by her parents, betrothed to a man, Joseph, married him while pregnant, gave birth to her first child, Jesus.

Who is God from all eternity enfleshed in her womb.

She subsequently had other children by Joseph

Nope.

and eventually died and is buried here on earth.

Whether she actually died or not, is not known. But the Tradition holds that she was assumed into heaven body and soul.

She is Not some deity, nor is she some saint, or idol that should be worshiped. She is fully and wholly human.

She is not a deity, nor an idol. However she is fully and wholly human and definitely the holiest of the Saints. Second only in holiness to God.