Recently I was invited to debate a Protestant on Mary being the mother of God, but unfortunately the debate fell through.

However, I thought you all might benefit from hearing a modified version of my opening statement that engages how some Protestants

object to this doctrine. So here we go. Father John Harden once said that

bad Mariology leads to bad Christology. And that's definitely true among those who reject

calling Mary the mother of God. This comes from the more ancient title Theotocos, which means Godbearer. But first let's define our terms. By God I mean a divine person.

When St Thomas said to Jesus, My Lord and my God, he was not saying my Lord and my Trinity. Thomas was saying Jesus is a divine person.

Jesus is the infinite God made man.

When we say God was born or God died on a cross, we are not saying the Trinity was born or that the Trinity died on the cross.

We are saying a divine person was born and a divine person died, namely the second person of the Trinity, God the son, who became the man

Jesus of Nazareth. By mother I mean a human who conceives, gestates, and gives birth

to another person.

Being the mother of God does not mean

Mary created Jesus's divine nature,

or even his human soul.

The catechism of the Catholic Church says,

every spiritual soul is created immediately by God.

It is not produced by the parents.

Instead, Mary gave the son his human nature, and she cared for this divine person in her womb

just as every other human mother gives a human nature to a person her son or

daughter who resides in her womb. Saying Mary is the mother of God simply means

that Mary conceived a person within her womb and that person was the second

divine person of the Trinity, God the son. Mary also gestated that divine person in her

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