All these titles and names demand a certain level of faith and trust. Without that terms like Mother of God, Ecumenical Council and even filioque have no real meaning.
I have never really heard the term 'Godbearer; used in English in RC circles. Do the Orthodox use this in English or must they use the Greek term.
On the other hand' Gottesgebaererin' (female bearer of God) is used commonly in RC circles in Germany along with Mutter Gottes.
Mary was not just the bearer of God but also the mother and nurturer and present at significant moments in the life of her son.
"God-bearer" in English is ambiguous. It is normally used as a translation of "Theophoros", referring to ascetic Saints who carried God in their hearts.
"Theotokos" is the one who gave birth to God. There is no straighforward translation other than "Mother of God", which is what is used in the translations that I am familiar with, unless the term "Mitir Theou" (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ) also occrurs in the same verse. The latter title is what appears on icons of the Mother of God. Who gives birth except a mother?
That's fine except that God bearer or Christ bearer in its context was clearly about Mary as the one who carried in her body (not her heart) and gave birth to (not accepted in her heart). Neither Greek word is easily translated into English without explanatory context, which may be one of the reasons why the Orthodox use the original Greek in worship.
I for one have acknowledged that the Filioque isn't conciliar. And it wouldn't bother me one bit if the RCC or anyone else dropped it. As others have said, Popes have dropped it when with Orthodox people, and the Eastern Rite churches that are in communion with Rome don't have it either.
That creed was an agreed form of words drafted in an attempt to reconcile theological differences about something that humans cannot comprehend anyway. Its a legal document .... a peace treaty, if you like. It had its place then and achieved what the framers set out to achieve.
It wasn't imposed on the Western Church by some Papal diktat out of the blue. It slowly spread for several centuries until Rome accepted what had been developing. I have said this before, but some people (you know who you are) want to interpret it as a spontaneous Papal invention that the perfidious Vatican wants to impose on the Orthodox. That is not true, though I can see how it might comfort those who want to entrench their position on East v West.
The Athanasian Creed is in the 1662 Church of England Prayer Book - "At Morning Prayer".
The wording there, that I quoted, implies the filioque. Hence my question about its use in churches that reject the filioque.
"Whatever"? Well it is a text that, whoever wrote it, would be better called a Threat than a Creed.
Indeed. It's quite a scary Creed.
Was Athanasius the author of it? Or would that be to go off on a tangent?
@Martin54 I admire your chutzpah. Of course it is 'impossible' but if there is a God and 'nothing is impossible with God' then surely anything is possible?
If one is an atheist of course than all of this is a load of baloney and hot air.
It's got nothing whatsoever to do with my beliefs. What is baloney and hot air, is semantically impossible, i.e. meaningless, syntax, squared, by saying that 'nothing is impossible with God' makes the gostak distims the doshes meaningful. Jesus being coterminous with God the Son is meaningless. Orthodox, sure. In the sacred text. Fundamentalist. Believe in it all you like. And no, Athanasius had nothing to do with the creed of his name. As you should know.
If Jesus were divine, by nature and will, incarnate, then incarnation happens concurrently infinitely throughout infinite nature. That is meaningful. Where, what is God the Son? Necessarily? A placeholder for all of those infinite creatures grounded perichoretically in God nature and will? What? More than that? How? The only meaningful alternative is the scandal of particularity, the reasonableness of which is one divided by infinity.
@Martin54 I hope you don't mind my saying this, but first of all, you seem to judging every other belief or position by whether it fits your own brain's decision as to what it regards as rational or credible and no other criterion. That is using the same technique as someone who rejects Copernican astronomy on the grounds that as the sun visibly rises in the east in the morning and sets in the west in the evening, then it's obvious that it must orbit the earth.
Secondly, I also can't follow what you are talking about.
@Martin54 I hope you don't mind my saying this, but first of all, you seem to judging every other belief or position by whether it fits your own brain's decision as to what it regards as rational or credible and no other criterion. That is using the same technique as someone who rejects Copernican astronomy on the grounds that as the sun visibly rises in the east in the morning and sets in the west in the evening, then it's obvious that it must orbit the earth.
Secondly, I also can't follow what you are talking about.
Why would I mind our @Enoch? No, what is rational and credible is independent of my mind. Belief, apart from coherent justified true belief, is not. Whether I believe, i.e. know, that or not.
I'm talking about that.
How is believing in the scandal of particularly once in infinity rational and credible? It's not even fallacious like your example.
I for one have acknowledged that the Filioque isn't conciliar. And it wouldn't bother me one bit if the RCC or anyone else dropped it. As others have said, Popes have dropped it when with Orthodox people, and the Eastern Rite churches that are in communion with Rome don't have it either.
That creed was an agreed form of words drafted in an attempt to reconcile theological differences about something that humans cannot comprehend anyway. Its a legal document .... a peace treaty, if you like. It had its place then and achieved what the framers set out to achieve.
It wasn't imposed on the Western Church by some Papal diktat out of the blue. It slowly spread for several centuries until Rome accepted what had been developing. I have said this before, but some people (you know who you are) want to interpret it as a spontaneous Papal invention that the perfidious Vatican wants to impose on the Orthodox. That is not true, though I can see how it might comfort those who want to entrench their position on East v West.
I am riffing and bantering to a large extent, @Alan29 and @Forthview, something I only do with those I consider to be friends. Ok, we've not met in real life but I have considerable respect for you both.
Consider it gentle ribbing rather than polemics.
I fully accept that the filioque clause developed gradually in the West and spread until it was generally accepted. Sure, we can read that Charlemagne 'forced' the Papacy to accept it and so on and so forth, but no, I don't believe he twisted the Pope's arm up his back until he agreed to include it. Nor do I believe that one of the Pope's woke up one morning and went, 'Mwa ha ha ha ha! I know what I'll do, I'll unilaterally include the filioque clause in the Creed. That'll teach 'em over in Constantinople and Alexandria etc ...'
Nor do I subscribe to the view that the Pope is 'anti-Christ' or has horns sticking out of his head and a pointy tail and trotters beneath his robes.
But that doesn't mean I'm giving the Vatican a clean slate. Heck, the RCs I know don't either.
I don't 'take comfort' in drawing battle-lines between Eastern and Western Christendom. I belong to a particular ecumenical society and attend their conferences. I'm off on an ecumenical jamboree to Walsingham this year and to an ecumenical conference later on in the year also. I am more than happy to attend services in RC and Protestant churches and deeply regret that we are not in full communion with one another.
None of that means that I should give the filioque clause a free pass.
Yes, as @Twangist observed upthread, in cases of divorce particular issues become highlighted as the main cause of friction. That's happened in this case.
But here's something to consider ...
I know you recognise that the filioque clause isn't conciliar but it doesn't appear to bother you that it isn't. I accept that the Creed was brokered to reconcile differences way back when and I know that it is possible to be a Church-Fundamentalist or a Creedal-Fundamentalist rather than a Biblical-Fundamentalist. I do think that there are RCs and Orthodox who fall into that particular trap.
There is a balance, though, I think, between accepting the Creed as authoritive and treating it purely as an historical construct with little or no bearing today - and I'm not suggesting you are doing that, I hasten to add. I'm probably in a different place along that spectrum than you might be. That doesn't mean I think you smell and are going to Hell. Far from it.
I've never said that the filioque clause was a 'spontaneous Papal invention', but I think it is true to say that once it was accepted in the West the Papacy expected everyone else to follow suit - at least until more modern times.
Comments
"God-bearer" in English is ambiguous. It is normally used as a translation of "Theophoros", referring to ascetic Saints who carried God in their hearts.
"Theotokos" is the one who gave birth to God. There is no straighforward translation other than "Mother of God", which is what is used in the translations that I am familiar with, unless the term "Mitir Theou" (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ) also occrurs in the same verse. The latter title is what appears on icons of the Mother of God. Who gives birth except a mother?
That creed was an agreed form of words drafted in an attempt to reconcile theological differences about something that humans cannot comprehend anyway. Its a legal document .... a peace treaty, if you like. It had its place then and achieved what the framers set out to achieve.
It wasn't imposed on the Western Church by some Papal diktat out of the blue. It slowly spread for several centuries until Rome accepted what had been developing. I have said this before, but some people (you know who you are) want to interpret it as a spontaneous Papal invention that the perfidious Vatican wants to impose on the Orthodox. That is not true, though I can see how it might comfort those who want to entrench their position on East v West.
It's got nothing whatsoever to do with my beliefs. What is baloney and hot air, is semantically impossible, i.e. meaningless, syntax, squared, by saying that 'nothing is impossible with God' makes the gostak distims the doshes meaningful. Jesus being coterminous with God the Son is meaningless. Orthodox, sure. In the sacred text. Fundamentalist. Believe in it all you like. And no, Athanasius had nothing to do with the creed of his name. As you should know.
If Jesus were divine, by nature and will, incarnate, then incarnation happens concurrently infinitely throughout infinite nature. That is meaningful. Where, what is God the Son? Necessarily? A placeholder for all of those infinite creatures grounded perichoretically in God nature and will? What? More than that? How? The only meaningful alternative is the scandal of particularity, the reasonableness of which is one divided by infinity.
Secondly, I also can't follow what you are talking about.
Why would I mind our @Enoch? No, what is rational and credible is independent of my mind. Belief, apart from coherent justified true belief, is not. Whether I believe, i.e. know, that or not.
I'm talking about that.
How is believing in the scandal of particularly once in infinity rational and credible? It's not even fallacious like your example.
I am riffing and bantering to a large extent, @Alan29 and @Forthview, something I only do with those I consider to be friends. Ok, we've not met in real life but I have considerable respect for you both.
Consider it gentle ribbing rather than polemics.
I fully accept that the filioque clause developed gradually in the West and spread until it was generally accepted. Sure, we can read that Charlemagne 'forced' the Papacy to accept it and so on and so forth, but no, I don't believe he twisted the Pope's arm up his back until he agreed to include it. Nor do I believe that one of the Pope's woke up one morning and went, 'Mwa ha ha ha ha! I know what I'll do, I'll unilaterally include the filioque clause in the Creed. That'll teach 'em over in Constantinople and Alexandria etc ...'
Nor do I subscribe to the view that the Pope is 'anti-Christ' or has horns sticking out of his head and a pointy tail and trotters beneath his robes.
But that doesn't mean I'm giving the Vatican a clean slate. Heck, the RCs I know don't either.
I don't 'take comfort' in drawing battle-lines between Eastern and Western Christendom. I belong to a particular ecumenical society and attend their conferences. I'm off on an ecumenical jamboree to Walsingham this year and to an ecumenical conference later on in the year also. I am more than happy to attend services in RC and Protestant churches and deeply regret that we are not in full communion with one another.
None of that means that I should give the filioque clause a free pass.
Yes, as @Twangist observed upthread, in cases of divorce particular issues become highlighted as the main cause of friction. That's happened in this case.
But here's something to consider ...
I know you recognise that the filioque clause isn't conciliar but it doesn't appear to bother you that it isn't. I accept that the Creed was brokered to reconcile differences way back when and I know that it is possible to be a Church-Fundamentalist or a Creedal-Fundamentalist rather than a Biblical-Fundamentalist. I do think that there are RCs and Orthodox who fall into that particular trap.
There is a balance, though, I think, between accepting the Creed as authoritive and treating it purely as an historical construct with little or no bearing today - and I'm not suggesting you are doing that, I hasten to add. I'm probably in a different place along that spectrum than you might be. That doesn't mean I think you smell and are going to Hell. Far from it.
I've never said that the filioque clause was a 'spontaneous Papal invention', but I think it is true to say that once it was accepted in the West the Papacy expected everyone else to follow suit - at least until more modern times.
Discussion s about
- Orthodox/ Roman Catholic/ other denominations relations
- Role and/or titles of Mary
- The existence of God
- The divinity of Jesus Christ
All deserve their own threads, if anyone wants them, but will not be well-served by this becoming a portmanteau thread.Accordingly I am closing the thread.
BroJames, Purgatory Host