MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD

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Mary as Mother of God

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Mary's most important title, "Mother of God," is another one of those things that are not written in the Holy Scripture. It was obvious, though, that she was the mother of Jesus because she gave birth to Him. But, Mother of God? That was not a title that would usually be given to a woman unless it was known for certain that the son of the woman was God.

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However, the Bible was not completely silent about the fact that Mary was the Mother of God. This fact was hinted at in Elizabeth's remark: "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43) Besides this, however, all other hints from Holy Scripture were given indirectly, that is, by saying that Christ was God and that, by inference, His mother must be the Mother of God.

 

That Mary was the Mother of God is an article of faith because the divinity of Jesus, her son, is an article of faith. Doubt in the divinity of Christ leads to doubt in Mary's motherhood of God. Therefore, the veneration of Mary as the Mother of God is closely tied to the worship of Christ as true God and true man. A lot depends on one's Christology, or on how one views the Person of Christ.

 

In the early years of Christianity, the divinity of Christ was challenged by the Arian heresy. According to the Arians, there was only one God. That was God the Father. They assumed that Christ was only a creature who was created before the world began but also the one by whom everything else was made. In short, Christ stood midway between the Father and the rest of the created world. However, Christ was not eternal like the Father is. He did not always exist. But he was described as a "lesser god" because, although he himself was created out of nothing, he made everything else. 

 

In addition to the Arian heresy, there was another one—the Nestorian heresy—which made a more direct attack on Mary's title. Unlike the Arians, the Nestorians did not deny the divinity of Christ. They, on the other hand, rejected Mary's title, Theotokos (or "God-bearer"), because she was the source of Christ's humanity rather than His divinity. Nestorius (A.D. 386–451) was a well-meaning Bishop of Constantinople. He wanted to defend both the divinity and the humanity of Christ, but for lack of a clear distinction between "person" and "nature," he spoke vaguely as if there were two persons in Christ.

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The problem of heretics who denied Christ's divinity or Mary's title was inextricably linked to the problem of heretics who denied the Blessed Trinity. It was rooted in the lack of a clear distinction between "person" and "nature." But today, thanks to the work of medieval theologians, it is possible to clarify the issues and avoid the difficulties that the early heretics struggled with:

 

• Our Catholic Faith tells us that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took human nature and was born of the Virgin Mary. This is called the mystery of the Incarnation. In the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, we see a plurality of distinct Persons united in one Divine Substance or Nature. In the mystery of the Incarnation, we see a plurality of natures (human and divine) united in one Person, which was Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. 

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• Christ is only one substance, one suppositum, or one Person, but with two natures—human and divine. By his divine nature, Christ is a doer of divine acts. By his human nature, he was also a doer of human acts. His substance is both human and divine. It is human by virtue of His human nature and divine by virtue of His divine nature. Christ is, therefore, both true God and true man.

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• Actions are acts of the person, not of nature. Although Christ had a human nature, the acts He performed in that nature still belonged to Him as a Person. It was Christ, not his human nature, who was born of the Virgin Mary and who suffered and died on the Cross. Since Christ was God, then it is completely accurate to say that a Divine Person suffered and died on the cross, but not as if He, as God, lost His eternal life and power. He died because of his human nature, and he lost his human life because of it. Thus says St. Thomas: "Christ is the fountain of life, as God, and not as man: but He died as man, and not as God... Accordingly, He experienced death by sharing in our human feeling, which of His own accord He had taken upon Himself, but He did not lose the power of His Nature, through which He gives life to all things" (Summa Theologiae, Part III, Q. 50, art. 1, Reply to Obj. 1).

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• It is because the Person who died on the cross was divine that Christ was able to atone for the sins of all mankind. Being divine, His passion and sufferings had infinite merit, enough to cover the infinite malice of man's sins.

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• Because Mary is the mother of the Person, Christ, rather than the human nature of the Child, it is also correct to refer to her as the Mother of God. Christ was God; therefore, Mary was the Mother of God. That the Child did not receive His divinity from Mary is not a valid objection to Mary's title as Mother of God. We, too, do not receive everything from our mothers. For example, we do not receive our souls from our mothers because souls are directly created by God during conception. A woman is called the mother of a person, not because the person received everything from her but because the person was born of her.