The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 1)

It's common for Roman Catholics and other critics of Protestantism to bring up support among the earliest Protestants for various Marian beliefs that are often rejected by Protestants today, like the perpetual virginity of Mary. Individuals like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli will be cited in support of her perpetual virginity and other such beliefs about her. While it's true that the earliest Protestants were closer to groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy on Marian issues than modern Protestants are, even the earliest Protestants substantially disagreed with those groups on some Marian issues. See the examples discussed here. And the early Protestants who accepted Mary's perpetual virginity sometimes disagreed with Catholics and other modern advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary on some issues related to the doctrine, like whether she took a vow of virginity. In the coming days, I'm going to be discussing some late medieval and Reformation sources who were more distant from a traditional Catholic view on the perpetual virginity of Mary. What I want to do in this post is discuss some background issues that I think are helpful in framing the discussion.

I Agree With The Earliest Christians About The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

When it comes to the perpetual virginity of Mary, do you agree with the Catholic view or with the view of Protestant reformers Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Wesley?

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) March 28, 2026

I agree with Matthew, Mark, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and other early Christians who rejected the perpetual virginity of Mary. Much of the Biblical evidence against her perpetual virginity rarely gets discussed, such as what I address here and here. There were many Christians in early church history who didn't believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin, far more than just Tertullian and Helvidius. You can access an archive of our posts on the perpetual virginity of Mary here. Keep clicking Older Posts in the lower right to see more.

Is the gospel larger than sola fide?

Many Evangelicals have cited Galatians and other parts of scripture against Roman Catholicism and other groups they think hold a false gospel. A common response has been to cite passages in the Bible that refer to the gospel without defining it the way those Evangelicals are defining it (Mark 1:1, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, etc.).

One Way Protestants Can Further Their Cause

When you can cite an extrabiblical pre-Reformation source or a source from the Reformation era or later in a given context, make more of an effort to cite the pre-Reformation source. If a church father or a modern theologian could be quoted on a topic, for example, quote the church father. That helps address various problems with ignorance of church history among Protestants, neglect of pre-Reformation sources, mischaracterizations of the historical credibility of Protestantism, etc. I'm not saying you should always cite the pre-Reformation source. That would be simplistic. But it can and should be done more often than it is.

When Protestants Handle Debates Poorly

I'm not just referring to formal debates, though they're part of the problem. The bigger problem is how Protestants in general handle certain debates in general, whether formal or informal ones.

The Evangelical Tabloid

It seems that one of the consequences of the societal changes I referred to in my last post is that some aspects of the culture are taking on more of a tabloid nature. For a long time, there's been a noticeable decline on conservative political radio programs, on conservative political web sites, and in other parts of our culture that have usually been thought of as traditional to some extent. You can see differences in a lot of contexts. There's more of a personal nature to things, such as a tendency to get overly emotional about certain individuals and to be overly focused on topics that are of a less significant and more personal nature (e.g., responses to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Hunter Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Or if a famous comedian, athlete, etc. says something that seems favorable to political conservatism, Christianity, or some other part of the culture that's more traditional, what that famous person said will get a lot of attention, much more than it should. Some web sites have a section highlighting which posts are the most popular at the moment, and what's most popular often resembles a tabloid far more than it ought to. Posts are getting more sensationalist headlines, and the audiences seem to like it and frequently take the bait. There's been a problem for years with even conservative radio programs and web sites, for example, having inappropriate ads, and that's gotten worse with the passing of time. (And not just in sexual contexts.) That's probably largely because the audiences like those kinds of ads so much and are responding favorably to them. There's also a problem with inappropriate photographs accompanying articles. Material and practices that used to be more associated with tabloids have become more mainstream. The examples of this type of thing go on and on. It's not universal, and it's occurred to different degrees in different contexts, but you see it to some extent in many places.

That includes Evangelicalism. Because people have delegated too much of their work to other individuals (as part of the shortcuts referred to in my last post), it's become more significant when somebody like pastor So-And-So exhibits some kind of perceived weakness. Therefore, a controversy that pastor is involved in gets more attention. And there are other factors involved, like the enjoyment people get from following scandals. They treat it like watching a soap opera. They like gawking at trainwrecks. Even if they didn't like it, they have a tendency to follow the crowd, and the crowd is chasing after scandals. There's also the fact that people like going after easy targets. You aren't risking much, and it gives you an easy sense of moral superiority to look down on a person who's done something that's widely agreed to be inappropriate.

There are other factors involved. I'm just giving some examples. And to whatever extent I'm wrong about how these problems have gotten worse in recent years, the fact remains that they are problems that exist to whatever degree. My main point is that the problem exists to some extent. I'm not suggesting that it's as bad as it could possibly be. And I'm not denying that the problem is accompanied by other things that are good. But it is a problem, and it needs to be addressed.

Mishandling The Demonic Hypothesis

I recently watched an interview Ross Coulthart did with Garry Nolan about UFOs. Here's a segment in which both refer to "religious fundamentalists" in the government handling UFO issues poorly. I've written about this subject before. I won't repeat everything I said there. I agree with Nolan that not only has the demonic hypothesis not been justified, but even if it were correct, we shouldn't therefore conclude that we shouldn't do any further research on UFOs.

There's a larger problem here with Christians being immature and irresponsible about paranormal issues more broadly. It isn't just a problem in the UFO context.

Resources For Reformation Day

Reformation Day will be celebrated in a few weeks. Here's a collection of resources on the historical roots of the Reformation and Evangelicalism. I update that page from time to time, and some changes have been made over the last several months. I've added links to articles about the evidence against a Catholic view of Mary in Luke's writings and whether Jesus taught a physical presence in the eucharist. See here for a recent post on the papacy, specifically how we should expect to see the office referred to in the early sources if such an office existed. And here's one I added on the Assumption of Mary.

The Leaders Of The Reformation And Evangelicalism

One of the means of accomplishing significant things is to surround yourself with good examples to learn from and emulate. John Piper has produced some good audio biographies of some of the leaders of the Reformation and later Evangelicalism.

"through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks" (Hebrews 11:4)

The Problem Of Ignorance Of The Church Fathers

"Far too many Evangelicals in the modern day know next to nothing about these figures [the church fathers]. I will never forget being asked to give a mini-history conference at a church in southern Ontario. I suggested three talks on three figures from Latin-speaking North Africa: Perpetua, Cyprian, and Augustine. The leadership of the church came back to me seeking a different set of names, since they had never heard of the first two figures, and while they had heard of the third name, the famous bishop of Hippo Regius, they really knew nothing about him. I gave them another list of post-Reformation figures for the mini-conference, but privately thought that not knowing anything about these figures was possibly a very good reason to have a conference on them! I suspect that such ignorance is quite widespread among those who call themselves Evangelicals" (Michael Haykin, Patrick Of Ireland [Scotland: Christian Focus, 2017], 9-10)

That ignorance causes major problems in interactions with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, atheists, Muslims, and other people whose beliefs and practices are highly relevant to the church fathers. The situation isn't as bad everywhere as Haykin's experience in Ontario, but it doesn't have to be so bad in order to be a significant problem.

I wrote an overview of how to study the church fathers several years ago. And I'll have more to say about the earliest fathers later this week.

The Justification Of The Reformation

Reformation Day is coming up later this month. Here's a collection of resources addressing many topics relevant to the Reformation. Some links have been added to it since last year (a third post on sola scriptura; a post on prooftexts for Catholic Mariology; see the comments section of the thread on the papacy for a couple of links that were added there; a post on ecclesiology; a fourth post on development of doctrine; a third post on the assumption of Mary).

Questioning the shutdown

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/03/questioning-the-shutdown

Who's the biggest threat to homosexuals?

1. In the modern era there's a paradoxical relationship between Christians and homosexuals. On the one hand, many homosexuals feel threatened by biblical norms regarding homosexuality, as well as the political influence of Christians.

2. Ironically, homosexuals are safer in a society that's culturally and numerically dominated by Christians than a secular regime. An exception would be theonomists, who believe homosexual behavior ought to be a capital offense. I've discussed that here:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/03/should-sodomites-be-executed.html

3. However, it's my impression that most evangelicals take a fairly live-and-let-live attitude towards homosexuals. Mind you, I think homosexuals should be banned from positions of authority (e.g. occupations like public school teachers, Boy Scout leaders, mayors, governors, judges, attorneys general, military officers).

The reason homosexuals are safer in a Christian culture (theonomy excepted) is because Christians believe in basic human rights, grounded in moral realism. There's a general floor for how all humans should be treated. 

4. By contrast, atheism is dangerous to everyone because it has no moral direction. The protected classes can change on a dime. It's driven by academic fads and power politics. Some groups have more rights than others, and the pecking order shifts arbitrarily and unpredictably. Blacks have been demoted in relation to homosexuals while feminists have been demoted in relation to trans. Your group can be a protected class one year, only to be a targeted class the next year.

5. Another factor is that straight Christians don't want anything from homosexuals, whereas one homosexual may view another homosexual the way vampires view humans: that's food! Because homosexuals want something from each other, that carries the risk of exploitation, rape, and domestic violence. 

Beyond binary

A friend asked me to comment on this:

https://sundayschoolanswers.wixsite.com/kalebgraves/post/a-christianity-beyond-binary

A Christianity Beyond Binary

God is beyond gender binary, so why can't our faith be too?

I’m a Christian, training to be a minister, and LGBTQ affirming. I was affirming of gender non-conforming and transgender people before I supported people seeking same-sex relationships. This may seem like a bigger step than just acceptance of same-sex marriage, but this affirmation is backed up by medicine, scripture, and praxis that has only gotten stronger since I took this position a few years ago.

For a couple of reasons I'm skipping over the "medical evidence:

Challies goes soft

Question is posed at 26:25.

Apostate of the month

Certain quarters of evangelicalism have developed an apostate of the month syndrome. Attention is lavished on celebrity apostates who recycle schoolboy objections to Christianity on their way out the church door. In the meantime are hundreds of millions of nameless unreached people around the globe, not to mention countless nameless Christians who persevere despite severe hardship and persecution. They should be the focus of our attention, and not charismatic, photogenic apostates. This is just a personality cult. 

41,000 denominations

My side of a recent Facebook exchange:

Why don't we drop the 41K denominations figure. That's highly misleading. Most Christians belong to handful of major denominations, viz. Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Pentecostal. You might say there are different Baptist or Presbyterian denominations, but these are families of denominations. They often have identical theology. The substantive distinction is between confessional/conservative and progressive Baptists, Presbyterians, &c. Most Christians belong to a handful of larger denominations that represent a historically stable package of theological beliefs. Even independent churches are apt to have a doctrinal stance identical to one of the standard denominations. These distinctions are necessary to correct a Catholic apologetic trope against sola scriptura and "pervasive interpretive pluralism".

This trades on equivocal usage regarding what constitutes a denomination. Do we count all Baptist denominations as separate denominations or as representatives of the same faith tradition? It's really a species/subspecies distinction.

Once again, I already anticipated the distinction between confessional/conservative denominations and progressive denominations, so you're objection is behind the curve. While local Baptist churches are technically autonomous, what makes them Baptist is affiliation with a particular faith-tradition.

I also don't know what you mean by "this is how chaos happens". Denominations that don't have autonomous local churches, denominations that are technically confessional and have a degree of hierarchy (e.g. Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian) can also liberalize. There's nothing about Baptist polity that makes it more susceptible to theological drift. That's easily paralleled in denominations with a more authoritarian polity.

Once more, the doctrinal requirements for elders are naturally stricter than for laymen since elders are the primary teachers and doctrinal enforcement officers. How is that germane to the rubbery 41K figure?

"I am not the one counting, I am simply using sources. So you will have to take it up with them."

I don't concede your fallacious argument from authority. We're discussing a substantive issue, and not how a reference work happens to list churches or denominations.

No denomination has a more elaborate authority structure and accountability system than Roman Catholicism, but that hasn't preserved it from "chaos" over the centuries.

You've now made clear that you have an antagonistic agenda regarding autonomous churches. That's your prerogative. You then use that to prop up a standard talking-point used by Catholic apologists. That may not be your intention but that's the effect.

But the attack on autonomous churches is invalid since there are parallel problems in churches with a more structured polity. So your objection is inconsistent. 

There is no "simple fact". There's no one criterion or set of criteria to classify denominations and faith traditions. You have chosen to focus on the most superficial. 

Yes, Baptists split. So do Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, &c. A particular polity is not a safeguard against schism or institutional apostasy. 

i) Your response is confused. I wasn't commenting on your post but your statement to Vlad about 41K denominations. You are undeniably antagonistic towards "autonomous" denominations.

ii) It's hardly frivolous to point out that your arguments in that regard are inconsistent. "Autonomous" denominations split and/or liberalize, but so do more hierarchal denominations. The UMC is about to split over homosexuality, and it split in the 19C over slavery. Yet it has bishops.

iii) It's not frivolous to point out that there are different ways to count Protestant affiliations. For instance, you can count them by faith traditions or denominations. Denominations typically exemplify particular faith traditions. It's a one-to-many relation. So do you count Baptists (or Methodists, or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, or Pentecostals, or Anglicans) as one each, according to the faith tradition they share in common, or do you count them as so many separate denominations? Likewise, if denominations group into theological families, do you count them as individuals or families?

That's not frivolous. Rather, that's a theologically and philosophically discriminating analysis. And it's not asking too much that an apologetics forum operate according to high standards of rational analysis.

Are there 30,000 war fronts?

A popular Catholic trope is how sola scriptura spawned 30,000 denominations. But that's a dumb way to count. Most Protestants affiliate with a handful of major denominations or corresponding faith-traditions, viz. Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Wesleyan Methodists. And there's overlap in these groupings. Arminian Baptists, charismatic Baptists, &c. By the same token, independent churches usually adopt one of the off-the-shelf faith-traditions represented by a standard evangelical denomination. 

Likewise, although these break down into subsets of denominations, they belong to theological families. Different Baptist or Presbyterian denominations belong to the same theological families, sharing the same essentials and distinctives. Their doctrinal positions are often identical. The main dividing line is between observant confessional denominations and progressive denominations. 

Likewise, debates between Catholic and Protestant usually revolve around a stereotypical menu of issues. On the Protestant side, sola Scriptura and sola fide. On the Catholic side, the papacy, number and nature of the sacraments, purgatory, canon, cult of the saints, contraception. 

Although the menu can be widened and deepened, Catholic and Protestant apologists don't debate thousands of competing positions, or hundreds of competing traditions, or even dozens of competing traditions. The disagreement almost invariably circles around a set of endlessly debated core issues. Catholic apologists aren't fighting on 30,000 different war fronts. 

Inerrancy and evidentialism

It's not uncommon for competing theological traditions to evolve and become increasingly divergent over time. For instance, there are now options in "evangelical" freewill theism that used to be considered liberal or out-of-bounds in the past, viz. purgatory, annihilationism, open theism, evolution, universalism, inclusivism, homosexuality. 

We may be seeing the same development in apologetics. There's an emerging pattern where, as evidentialism and prepositionalism continue to evolve and diverge, presuppositionalism is defined in part by commitment to inerrancy while evidentialism and classical apologetics are now defined in part by a noncommittal position on inerrancy. To some degree this seems to reflect a generational shift from old-guard evidentialism/classical theism. 

I wonder how characteristic this will become moving forward. Will presuppositionalists be the only defenders of inerrancy as a matter of principle, while the rival schools regard that as expendable or a drag factor we're better off without?

I am struck by the casual way in which traditional evangelical commitment to inerrancy is being sidelined, as though revelation and inspiration are unimportant to the nature of the Christian faith.

Is Michael Brown a hypocritical bigot?

https://randalrauser.com/2020/02/if-hypocrisy-were-an-olympic-sport-evangelicals-would-get-the-gold/

Like most folks, I am sick unto death of pointing out the morally vapid hypocrisy of American evangelicals when it comes to Donald Trump.

i) What makes Rauser imagine he speaks for most folks? Does he have polling data to back that up?

ii) Why is a Canadian theologian so obsessed with an American president? Why is he constantly attacking Trump but only very rarely has anything to say about Justin Trudeau?

Brown is aware that he will be called a homophobic bigot. But it is worth highlighting why the charge seems so plausible in this case. Evangelicals like Brown fall over themselves to excuse Trump’s grotesque immorality. 

I've seen and read several things by Brown in which he's critical of Trump's personal morality. On the face of it, Rauser's allegation is willfully uninformed and slanderous. 

By contrast, Buttigieg’s sin, being married to a man, makes him unfit for public office. It is on that topic that these leaders suddenly believe morality matters and that they must draw a line in the sand.

i) What's required to show that Brown's position is hypocritical? It's certainly not enough to show that Trump's past sexual behavior violates Brown's moral standards, because a sophisticated ethical system will have a priority structure in which some standards rank higher than others, or where it's a combination of violated standards that makes the difference. So Rauser hasn't shown, or even attempted to show, that Brown's position is hypocritical. 

ii) It's revealing that Rauser keeps comparing homosexual "marriage" to heterosexual marriage, as if they're morally analogous. But sodomites can't cheat on each other. Only straight married couples can cheat on each other. Homosexual activity is sinful whether that's with a so-called homosexual "husband," or callboy, or rentboy, or boyfriend (or lesbian counterparts). Homosexual activity is sinful whether that's with one partner for life or multiple partners.

iii) Moreover, homosexual "marriage" defiles the divine institution of marriage in a way that heterosexual adultery does not. Adultery is a sin against particular marriages, but it doesn't redefine the God-given nature of marriage. While adultery is a grave sin and potentially damnable, it's not sacrilegious–unlike homosexual "marriage". 

iv) Does Brown only draw a line in the sand with respect to homosexual candidates in a queer marriage? Does Brown not also draw ideological lines in the sand with respect to straight Democrat candidates? Is Brown okay with Elizabeth Warren? 

Yeah, that sure does look like homophobic bigotry. Behavior and reasoning like this provide very plausible evidence that Christians like Brown have an irrational fear of and/or antipathy toward gay people.

That's just demagoguery. This isn't about fear of/antipathy towards homosexuals, but about empowering homosexuals to make public policy decisions that punish virtue while promoting vice.