I responded to some Catholics on Facebook. The context was whether Mary is the "Mother of God".
There's a lot of equivocation going on in this comment thread. Is Jesus God?
i) It's unorthodox to say that Jesus is God without qualification, just as it's unorthodox to say the Father is God without qualification. After all, without introducing necessary qualifications, to say the Father is God and Jesus is God entails that Jesus is the Father. Surely we wish to avoid that conclusion.
Orthodox theology requires precision thought. Using simplistic terminology isn't orthodox. So let's drop the facile accusations of heresy when the accusers are using ambiguous terminology.
It would be more precise to say the Trinity is God. Likewise, it would be more precise to say each person of the Trinity is divine.
ii) In addition, Jesus isn't simply divine. Rather, there's the doctrine of the two natures. Distinguishing the two natures isn't equivalent to separating the two natures. Some things are true of Christ's human nature that are false of his divine nature, and vice versa. That's a necessary, orthodox distinction.
There was never a time when the Son qua Son did not exist. Mary was never the mother of the Son qua Son.
I repeat: orthodoxy requires precision thought and precision formulations.
Now, you can say things like "God died on the cross" in the extended sense that an individual died on the cross who united divine and human natures in one person. But to say "God died on the cross" without further qualification is confusing, inaccurate, and unorthodox.
"Motherhood" has connotations of sourcehood. Mary was not the source of the Son qua Son's existence. Jesus has an origin in time. The Incarnation as a calendar date. But orthodoxy requires us to draw conceptual distinctions.
Consider the following logic: Jesus is God, the Father is God, therefore Mary is the Mother of God the Father.
That's a problem with using simplistic, ambiguous formulations. In their zeal to paint evangelicals in a corner, some Catholic apologists are painting themselves in a corner. Don't use arguments that can easily be turned against you.
"i) It's unorthodox to say that Jesus is God without qualification, just as it's unorthodox to say the Father is God without qualification."
ReplyDeleteI agree. Qualification is a good thing.
"After all, without introducing necessary qualifications, to say the Father is God and Jesus is God entails that Jesus is the Father. Surely we wish to avoid that conclusion."
I don't see how it follows that without further qualification the necessary implication or entailment would be that Jesus is the Father. Steve is human and Ron is human doesn't entail Ron is Steve. So why is it true that if we say the Father is God and Jesus is God that would entail that Jesus is the Father?
Is doesn't mean equals, right?
"I don't see how it follows that without further qualification the necessary implication or entailment would be that Jesus is the Father. Steve is human and Ron is human doesn't entail Ron is Steve. So why is it true that if we say the Father is God and Jesus is God that would entail that Jesus is the Father?"
Delete1. I don't object per se to calling individual members of the Trinity "God". That's fine for popular usage. If, however, the usage is pressed, it's trivially easy to generate formal contradictions.
2. "God" is a noun, while "human" is an adjective. So those aren't directly comparable parts of speech.
3. My problem is when Catholics used coarse-grained language which can easily be redeployed to make patently false statements. Take the following:
A. Catholic syllogism:
i) Jesus is God
ii) Mary is the mother of Jesus
iii) Ergo, Mary is the mother of God
B. Counterexample:
i) Jesus is God
ii) The Father is God
ii) Mary is the mother of Jesus
iii) Ergo, Mary is the mother of God
iv) Ergo, Mary is the mother of God the Father
Given the transitive law in logic, there nothing in the word "God" to show where (B) goes awry. If (A) is valid, so is (B).
I'm just presenting a counterexample to the Catholic inference, based on "Jesus is God".
We need more fine-grained usage to draw necessary distinctions.
I'm constructing a tu quote argument in response to the Catholic argument:
DeleteA. Catholic argument
i) Jesus is God
ii) Mary is the mother of Jesus
iii) Therefore, Mary is the mother of God
B. Tu quoque
i) Mary is the mother of God
ii) The Father is God
iii) Therefore, Mary is the mother of God the Father
A Catholic apologist accepts (A). I then use the conclusion from (A) as the major premise for (B). A Catholic apologist accepts both the major and minor premise of (B). But he will reject the conclusion to (B).
However, the reasoning in (B) is the mirror image of (A). So either both arguments go through or both fail.
One source of the problem lies in the semantic ambiguity of "God". The meaning and referent of "God". If that's a problem for (B), that's a problem for (A).
I'd add that Dale Tuggy likes to tie unsophisticated Christians in knots by posing ambush questions that trade on the semantic ambiguities of "God". Why give him the satisfaction?
DeleteThe Trinity does not follow the transitive law in logic. That is basically the Trinity's defining characteristic.
DeleteIt was the "Theotokos"/"Christotokos" issue that got Nestorius in trouble. Rome actually issued a "Common Christological Declaration" in 1994 with the Assyrian church that recognizes "the legitimacy and rightness of these expressions of the same faith", noting "we both respect the preference of each Church in her liturgical life and piety".
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if the broader churches (east and west) in the 5th century recognized the difference, having used the phrase "mater theou" in the council of Ephesus -- and then, recognizing the difficulty in the sense that Steve noted, pulled back and adopted the phrase "Theotokos" in the council of Chalcedon ("God-bearer"). That is the sense, I think, in which many of the Reformed who use that phrase are using it.
The definition of Chalcedon seems to deal with this with a kind of precision that modern Roman Catholics do not:
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the ["bearer of God", "Theotokos"], according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως – in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter) the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence (hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
Although there's a roundtable sense in which we could say Mary is the "mother" of God, that has very misleading connotations, and it's always used as a wedge tactic to justify full-blown Mariolatry.
DeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I addressed some of these equivocations like you here... gets a bit long in the tooth though.
http://reformedapologist.blogspot.com/2011/06/trinity-paradox.html?m=
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYour noun adjective distinction got me thinking. Although human can be used as an noun, I was using it as an adjective as you noted. If God is used as a noun, then I think is and equals become virtually synonymous in those cases. If God is not well defined and is allowed to be used to mean divine - as an adjective, the manner remains equivocal at best but false notions cannot be deduced, only inferred. Reason being, is would not imply equals in such cases. There'd be massive equivocation nonetheless. That was the thrust of my blog post.
My basic point is that the Catholic argument either proves too much or too little. They are drawing inferences from ambiguous terms.
DeleteMy own preference, when I wish to be precise, is to reserve "God" for the Trinity and use "divine" for the persons of the Trinity. And there are ways to define divine. The Son is divine in the same sense that the Father is divine, or the Son is divine in the same sense as Yahweh is divine, or divine means possession of all divine attributes.
I distinguish between words and concepts. I think the Trinity is too subtle to capture in single worlds. When we wish to be precise, we need to go beyond individual words to define usage and explicate concepts.
Amen, Steve. Nice 👍
ReplyDelete