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pia†desideria
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
| Posted 12/19/2001 8:43 AM (GMT -6) |   | Doc, here are some thoughts I posted about Mary in another thread:
Mary’s pregnancy was illigitimate accoring to the world’s standards. We worship a "God of the Possible" who "makes a way out of no way," who has the power to transform any evil into good, even the cross (this is how Luther defines omnipotence—all-transforming vs. all-contolling power—in his interpretation of Rom. 8:28). The power and possibility available to Christians is a huge threat to the pattern of this world. Herod felt his sovereignty was at stake because of the illigitimate pregnancy of a poor, young, uneducated woman. In spite of his murderous precautions, he could not stop the theotokos, the God-bearer.
I think Mary is the greatest example of meekness. Her response to the Holy Spirit…is a beautiful example of finitum capax infiniti (finite capacity for the infinite). "Touched by the eternal, time gives birth to wonders of which neither ancient astrology nor modern futurology can know" (Douglas John Hall, God, Evil, and Suffering).
Here are some thoughts I have collected on the Virgin Birth:
The mystery of the incarnation depends on the mystery of human freedom.…Mary, in the Roman Catholic tradition, articulates the conviction that fides is as well a fiat, not simply reception but reception appropriated and returned as response (Rivera, Community of the Beautiful, 19).
If, however, one gets behind all the mystifying terminology of the "two natures," the concept of virgin birth ontically rather than historically understood, the homoousios/homoiousios debate, the theotokos idea, and all the rest, one discovers an affirmation that is both simple (in the profoundest sense of the term!) and in striking continuity with the whole bent of Hebraic faith, namely God identifies with humanity. (Hall 108)
…I made a passing reference to the Virgin Birth, in which I contrasted an ontological (or metaphysical) with a "historical" approach to the dogma.…It does not have to do with the possibility or impossibility of a woman producing a baby without the cooperation of a male, however metaphorically suggestive that may be! It has to do with the nature of grace, or with grace and nature. It speaks of the receptive capacities of nature and history while denying their redemptive capacities. (Hall 205–206)
Finitude as such does not provide this way, is not "provident"; but the finite "has a capacity for the infinite" (finitum capax infiniti). Touched by the eternal, time gives birth to wonders of which neither ancient astrology nor modern futurology can know. (Hall 111)
Merry Christmas,
pia
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