Welcome to the first of a four part series on the Marian dogmas. This series is based on an interview with Karlo Broussard. We will explain each dogma in its own article. If you would like to see the YouTube video of the interview, click here.

Karlo: Whenever discussing the dogmas of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it’s important that we define what a dogma is. It is basically a teaching that the Church has put forward as coming from the deposit of faith (whether Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition). So, it’s set forth in a definitive manner as divinely revealed. This is the highest level of Church teaching.

There are four of these Catholic teachings about Mary that we believe to be a part of divine Revelation:

  1. Mary as the mother of God (also known as the Theotokos, the God bearer).
  2. Mary as perpetual virgin, ever Virgin Mary
  3. Mary as immaculately conceived, the Immaculate Conception
  4. Mary as bodily assumed.

These are the four teachings that we believe to be part of divine Revelation. The Church has other teachings about the Blessed Mother that we might say are official but not infallible. But these dogmas are infallible teachings, without error. Also, these dogmas are not just infallible. They are a part of divine Revelation. And so, we ascent to them based on the very word of God itself, as opposed to other infallible teachings that aren’t put forward as being a part of divine Revelation, but nevertheless are infallible. We ascent to them based on the authority of the Magisterium.

Bryan: So, why don’t we start with the first dogma. Let’s get right into it. Most Protestants don’t understand how Mary could be the Mother of God. And in fact, to many Protestants, it just seems insulting. How can God have a mother? Did she exist before the Trinity? Did she give birth to God almighty? How could we Catholics even assert that? Obviously, that’s not our teaching. So, what is the teaching of the Catholic Church on this?

Karlo: Yes. In affirming that Mary is the Mother of God, what we’re affirming is that Mary gave birth to a person, and that Person is divine.

So, a Mother is one who bears a child, right? One who gives birth to a child, and the subject of that birth, Jesus, was the second Person of the blessed Trinity, who is equal to the Father and thus divine. So, we used the word God to refer to Jesus in the sense that he’s equal to the Father with the divine nature. Since he, that Person, the second Person of the blessed of Trinity, is the one who was born of the blessed Virgin Mary, we say that Mary is the Mother of that Person, and thus, she is the Mother of God.

So, what we are not saying in affirming Mary as the Mother of God, is that Mary is equal to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the divine nature. In saying that Mary is the Mother of God, we’re not saying that Mary eternally existed with the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. We’re not saying that Mary gave the divine nature to Jesus. We’re simply affirming that the son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, was born of a woman as Saint Paul teaches us in his letter to the Galatians. And in as much as that woman is the one who gave birth to that Person, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, who is divine, we can say that Mary is the Mother of God.

So, that’s at least what we mean when we say Mary is the Mother of God. The Council of Ephesus, in 431 AD, gave the formulation of the Theotokos, or the God bearer. They ripped off of St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians by saying that the son of God was born of a woman. That woman, Mary, bore the son of the living God. And in as much as she gave birth to him, we can say that she is his Mother. Mothers are women who give birth to persons, and that’s what Mary did. She gave birth to the second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Bryan: So, she didn’t just give birth to his human nature, as some people might say, but she gave birth to him as a whole person with both of his natures? How would a Protestant understand that?

Karlo: Yes. So again, getting back to what the definition of a mother is. A mother is not one who gives birth simply to a nature. A mother is one who gives birth to a person who has a nature. For me, being born of my mother, I am a person. I am the subject of the birth. I am the one who was born and who has a human nature. My mother was not even responsible for one part of my human nature, namely my rational soul. She was responsible for the material element, at least part of the material element, that would constitute my body. Yet, she’s still my mother because she gave birth to me as a person with a human nature.

The second Person of the Blessed Trinity is a person who was born of Mary. That doesn’t mean Mary is the source of his divine nature. It doesn’t even mean, like in the case of my mother, that she is the source of the part of his human nature that is his rational soul. It simply means that she birthed a person, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who happens to be God. Thus, we can affirm the title Mary, the Mother of God.

Bryan: Very briefly. I’ve told this to many Protestants, and surprisingly, many of them get that. They say that actually makes sense. But our concern is that it’s confusing to people. So why did the Catholic Church come up with this term in the first place? What were the circumstances happening before the Council of Ephesus that made the Catholic Church decide this?

Karlo: You had one, by the name of Nestorius, who was proposing that in Jesus there were two persons – a human person and a divine Person. He asserted that Mary gave birth to and was the mother of only the human person in Jesus. And this is known as the heresy of Nestorianism. The Council of Ephesus condemned it because affirming that Mary is the Mother of God, the Theotokos, is at the same time wanting to affirm the very purpose of affirming. In other words, to affirm Mary as the Mother of God is to affirm that in Jesus there is one person, who is the divine Person and the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. And so, in affirming Mary as the Mother of God, we’re actually protecting the truth of the single personhood of Jesus: that he is one Person and not two persons. He is one divine Person but with two natures. Because he is the Person who was birthed, and Mary gave birth to that Person (the second Person of the Blessed Trinity), we can say that Mary is the mother of the son of God. She is the mother of the second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Bryan: Thank you very much for that explanation.