Quo Vadis Youth

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Mary as the Mother of God
By Mary Clare Piecynski
Not many things jolt the average Joe into attention more than calling a mere woman “Mother of God.” This title at first glance speaks of heresy-how could a mortal woman be the mother of divinity. Isn’t it true that for God to be God He would have to preexist all time? How could a human person possibly claim to be God’s own mother? Many centuries ago the Catholic Church wrestled with these very questions when in the 5th century when a man named Nestorius declared that one could not properly call Mary the Mother of God, Theotokos in the Greek. Instead, Nestorius preferred the title Christotokos, or Christ-bearer. Nestorius believed this to be fitting since he asserted that Christ had two natures along with two persons. As a result, Mary was the mother of the human nature united to the human person, but not to the divine nature united to the divine Person. Consequently, the Catholic Church was thus issued the challenge to decide whether or not it was fitting for Christians to call Mary the Mother of God.
                In response to Nestorius, the Catholic Church met in Ephesus in 431 to consider the question of Mary as Mother of God.   The question of whether or not it is fitting to call Mary the Mother of God bespeaks of course the question of who is Jesus Christ? Is He really a dualist entity, comprised of two persons and two natures, one human and one divine? The Council concluded that Jesus Christ was one person with one human nature and one divine nature. Therefore, the Council at Ephesus further stated, it was fitting and appropriate to call Mary Mother of God. The Council taught that Mary is the “Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”
                To understand this idea of calling Mary the Mother of God one might need to take a step back and examine where the Council at Ephesus was coming from. For instance, a person needs to take a closer look at just who the person of Jesus Christ is. For, if Jesus is both truly God and truly man and if Mary was His mother, than it would follow that you could call Mary the mother of God. First, the question, is Jesus Christ truly God? The Scripture continually attests to the fact that Jesus truly is God, the Second Person of the Trinity. For example, Christ claims that He and the Father are one (John 17:22) Peter confesses that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16) and Thomas hails Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The humanity of Christ is just as evident throughout the Bible. The New Testament relates how Jesus ate, conversed, grew weary and slept, all which help us understand that He was fully human.
                How then are we to understand Mary in relation to Jesus? She is obviously His mother, and since Jesus is not only fully man but fully God we can rightly call her Mother of God. That does not mean, as the Council of Ephesus proclaimed, that she is the mother of Christ’s divine nature. Rather, she is the mother of the Person Jesus Christ, who is both God and man. This is true since “an earthly mother is such not only of the body, or the human nature of her child, but of the actual person of that child…Mary is not only the Mother of the body of Christ, but Mother of the Person subsisting in the body, which Person is divine, the Work of God (Suenens, Leon Joseph. Mary, Mother of God Hawthorn Books, New York 1962 page 46).   The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way, “the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit...was none other than the Father’s eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence, the Church confesses that Mary is truly ‘Mother of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 495).
Does this title of Mary however have any Scriptural bearing? A cursory glance at the first two chapters of Luke results in a resounding yes. First of all, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that “the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) If this child is to be called the Son of God then it follows that His mother would be called the Mother of God. Further, when Mary visits Elizabeth, Elizabeth cries out that Mary is “the mother of my Lord.” (Luke 1:43) Since Lord is merely another term for God, Elizabeth is essentially calling Mary the Mother of God.
                In essence, the question of whether or not to call Mary the Mother of God boils down to the question of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ has two natures united in one Person as orthodox Christians have always asserted, then there is no problem with logically deducing that Mary is then the Mother of God. Therefore, since Mary is the mother of the Person of Jesus Christ and not just His nature one may rightly call Mary the Mother of God.