As I talk with more and more Protestants, I realize that there is an aversion towards referring to Our Lady as Theotokos, or the Mother of God (literally “God-bearer”). Maybe some Protestants are worried of being too Catholic if they acknowledge this title of Mary. Perhaps they think that Catholics are giving more authority or primacy to Mary than to God, since we seem to assert that Mary is the cause of God by giving birth to Him. However, it is important to recognize that Mary truly is the God-bearer, the one who conceived God in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit, and who gave birth to God nine months later. Why is “Mother of God” such a significant title? Because rejecting it quickly leads one to an ancient heretical view about who Christ is, and this view is called Nestorianism.
In the 5th century A.D., Nestorius, the archbishop of Constantinople, developed a Christological position that was meant to be a reaction against the Arian heresy from the century before. Because of his perspective on the Incarnation, his understanding of the nature of Christ was significantly flawed when compared to the orthodox stance laid out at the Council of Nicaea. Nestorius taught that the Son of God, or the Second Person of the Trinity, exists eternally. So far, so good. We Catholics also believe that the Second Person, along with the other two divine persons, is eternal. But then Nestorius makes his fatal mistake: When describing the Incarnation, he says that Mary only gave birth to the human nature of Christ, not to His divine nature. The divine nature resides in the eternal Son of God, while the human nature is in Jesus Christ. As a result, he called for a rejection of the title Theotokos for Mary, instead preferring the term Christotokos, meaning Christ-bearer.
Clearly, Nestorius did not believe that Mary is the Mother of God. Rather, he thought that she was the mother of the human nature of Christ. There is a huge problem with this, though: Mothers do not give birth to natures, they give birth to persons. And if Mary only bore Jesus’ human nature, she therefore only bore a human person. In sum, if Nestorianism is correct, the child Jesus that was born of the Virgin Mary would have to be a mere human person, while the eternal Son is only a divine person. By arguing that Mary only bore Christ’s human nature while the divine nature remained separate in heaven, Nestorius splits the two natures into two distinct persons. Therefore, Nestorianism views Jesus as a human being with a human nature, but not as God.
This poses some serious obstacles for Protestants who deny the Mother of God title, since most Protestants agree with Catholics when it comes to the hypostatic union, namely that in the one person of Jesus there are two complete natures, human and divine. This is why we can say that Jesus is fully God and fully man. But by denying that Mary is the Theotokos, you would also have to deny that Jesus is truly God, and you thereby fall into the Nestorian heresy. When I talk about this issue with Protestants, I like to use a very simple syllogism that someone once taught me:
1. Jesus is God.
2. Mary is the mother of Jesus.
3. Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
This quick and simple argument highlights the key issues at stake here. Both Catholics and Protestants can agree that Jesus is one person, and that in this one person there are two natures. Thus, Jesus is God. We can also agree that the event of the Incarnation was the hypostatic union of these two natures without confusion or commingling, which began with Mary’s conception. Then if in the single person of Jesus there is His total nature as God and His total nature as man, Mary has to be the Mother of God. The very thing we cannot say is that Mary gave birth to just the human nature of Jesus! We would have to split the two natures into two persons and deny Jesus’ divinity. The only logical conclusion is that Mary indeed bore the one person of Jesus Christ, who is fully human and fully divine.
One objection I’ve heard in response to this argument is that by making Mary the mother of God, we somehow make her more important than God, at least in terms of generation. If God came into existence because of a human being, then isn’t God dependent on that human being at some level?
Before addressing the objection directly, let me clarify one important point. When we say that Mary is the Mother of God, we do not mean that she gave birth to the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father and the Holy Spirit were not born of a virgin. We even agree that the Son of God, who is Jesus Christ, existed for all eternity prior to creation. But what happened at the Incarnation wasn’t a simple coming-to-be out of nothing; rather, it was the event in which the eternal Son of God, the everlasting Word, the Second Person of the Trinity assumed human flesh and took on a human nature without compromising His divinity in any way. We also need to acknowledge that each Person of the Trinity possesses the fullness of the divine substance. We don’t believe that each Person makes up one-third of God, as the heresy of partialism teaches. So when you see one of the Persons, in a sense you see all three, because each Person is fully God. Therefore, we don’t mean that Mary conceived the entire Trinity in her womb, but that because Jesus is God Himself, containing the full divine substance, Mary is God’s mother.
Now, this does not in any way jeopardize God’s primacy over Mary, since her conception of Jesus does not deny the reality that the Son of God existed from all eternity. We Catholics don’t think that she caused God to come into existence. Rather, she was the vessel through whom the eternal God was able to assume a human nature, and so, in the one divine person, the union of two natures occurred. Thus, in no way is God being demoted or placed lower than Mary, since His divinity was not lost by the Incarnation.
Hopefully, this post cultivates discussion and deep thought around the mysteries of the Incarnation and the two natures of Christ. The Catholic Church calls Mary the Mother of God not to denigrate God, but to exalt Him, to recall the reality that God became man without compromising either divinity or humanity. All Christians should consider at least acknowledging the validity of referring to the Blessed Mother in this way, since it helps reaffirm something that Catholics and Protestants can all agree on, namely that Christ is not just one man among many, but the God-man.
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