In the first volume of Mary, Mother of the Son, Mr Mark Shea addressed the sources from which the Church developed her teachings concerning Our Lady (or anything else, for that matter). Now, in the second volume, titled First Guardian of the Faith, he now sets his sights on four of the 5 Marian dogmas* of the Church: Theotokos (God-bearer), Mary's Perpetual Virginity, her Immaculate Conception, and her Assumption (Body and Soul) into heaven at the end of her life. Here, he gives a cogent defense of these dogmas by explaining how the doctrines have developed, examining some scriptures which hint at these dogma, and by rebutting Protestant readings of select verses which seem to counter these dogma.

Concerning these alleged proof-texts, Mr Shea states at the outset that

Quote: Marian dogmas are not derived from Scripture. They are, rather, reflected there. That is, they're what you get when you read Scripture through the lens of the apostolic Tradition as preserved by the Spirit-guided Body of Christ in union with the bishops and pope in succession from the apostles. In short, they have the same descent as the canon of Scripture itself, the doctrine of the Trinity, the rejection of polygamy, and the teaching that human life is sacred from the moment of conception. To reject such teaching, it's not sufficient to show that it's not absolutely in Scripture alone, since none of the teachings I just mentioned earlier are, either. Rather, one must show that Scripture clearly and unequivocally contradicts it. And, as we shall show, not only is there no place where Scripture clearly and unequivocally contradicts Catholic Marian teaching, there are actually many places where the Bible bears surprising witness to it.

One theme in the first volume is that Our Lady points beyond herself. This theme is taken up again in the First Guardian of the Faith. Every one of the Marian dogmas is literally about Our Lady--but literal is not the only sense in which a doctrine is to be interpreted, though any dogma will have that literal interpretation, too. Thus, for example, Mary's title of Theotokos or "Mother of God" does not mean that she created God; but it does mean that she is the mother of Christ, who was God, and that she bore Him in her womb for nine (or so) months, and that He truly was God during this time--hence Saint Mary really was the God-bearer**. It also means that Christ truly was man, contra Nestorius. But Nestorius, in dividing Christ's humanity form His divinity, effectively destroying the depth of meaning and salvific power of Christ's sacrifice. Here Mr Shea writes:

Quote: See what happens when Nestorius' theory is applied to real life: Jesus becomes unable to save us. Why? Because he's no longer the God-Man, bearing our sins to the cross and rising to give us his divine life. His humanity is effectively cut off from his deity, like two roommates sharing the same apartment, but having nothing in common and nothing to say to each other. The man who died on the cross was not God, but a mere creature occupied by the Logos. The God who occupies that man does not share our nature and therefore can neither die for our sins as a fellow son of Adam, nor share his divine life with us, because he doesn't even share it with the human bio-envelope named Jesus that he was inhabiting.

Read the rest on the Nicene Guys site.

Tags: Our-Lady Apologetics

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