Catholic Apologetics Guidebook

What shall we do with our free time, if we do? :-)

I think a question not addressed is: have you noticed that having (allegedly) a married couple both agreeing to stay virgins is highly irregular in the bible? God himself said that the married man and woman (starting with adam and eve) become "one flesh". I think it's clear that this is referring to sexual relations, since later in 1 Cor 6:16 we have Paul saying:

"What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh."

Clearly, God intended sex to be a normal thing between man and wife. I don't believe there is single reference in the bible to any married couple both deciding to stay virgins. Correct me if I'm wrong. If Mary and Joseph deviated from what God says is a normal marriage.. don't you think it would have been for a good reason and that reason would likely be stated in scripture? We don't have any of that.

Again.. I think it's working backwards from the traditions of the Catholic church to make the Word line up with their traditions. There is no reason from the Word alone to think Mary and Joseph stayed virgins for life. The burden of proof is on the group/individual who wants to say Mary and Joseph somehow deviated from the standard God set up for marriage. I guess that's all I have to say.

Hi,

Since you brought up one or two new questions, I'd like to address them very briefly...

I think a question not addressed is: have you noticed that having (allegedly) a married couple both agreeing to stay virgins is highly irregular in the bible?

Yes I have noticed that. I have also noticed that having a virgin give birth to God incarnate, or having a married couple raising a child who is the Son of God, are both highly irregular in the Bible as well (they each only happen just the one time, that I'm aware of). :-) So there are at least these two highly irregular things about Joseph and Mary that we both do agree on.

There is no reason from the Word alone to think Mary and Joseph stayed virgins for life.

I think that there is, based on several arguments I have made above. Not absolute proof, but indications nonetheless. But I respect that you see it a different way.

In another thread, you refer to the acceptance of previously-stated patterns as a valid reference to assume the pattern in any cases where the specifics are not explicitly stated.

In this thread you state:

Again.. I think it's working backwards from the traditions of the Catholic church to make the Word line up with their traditions. There is no reason from the Word alone to think Mary and Joseph stayed virgins for life. The burden of proof is on the group/individual who wants to say Mary and Joseph somehow deviated from the standard God set up for marriage. I guess that's all I have to say.

Now, while I don't go so far as to say these assumptions are invalid (to tell the truth, I'm not sure that any of the issues that arise from them are of great importance to faith), I would suggest that by only a slight extension, we wind up with things like The DaVinci Code's assertion that Christ was married.

See, the most effective argument that Brown makes for that assertion is that in Hebraic culture at the time, an unmarried man at 30 was all but unheard of. It was simply against cultural and religious tradition. Since it is not stated that Christ was unmarried, Brown says, which would have been a noticable deviation from the norm lit up in neon lights, it is appropriate to assume that He was, in fact, married.

Now, I don't disagree with this assessment, though I don't assume then that Christ was in fact married. I just allow the question to be unanswered; it is clearly not important to the belief in Him that he be unmarried or married, since Scripture gives us neither one nor the other assertion (if we take Scripture as we have it to be the end-all and be-all of our faith.)

But it is based on similar reasoning to that which you use in this, and the other thread; that what is not stated specifically can be assumed. I'm not sure that's valid, and certainly not valid in one sense and ridiculous in the other sense.

It seems to me we are all working backwards to Scripture from our preconceptions. And I'm not sure this is wrong. If Christ is not in our hearts to be recognized already, surely we will not understand Scripture as it is intended to be understood.

Which brings us to the vicious circle; without Christ in our hearts, we will not understand Scripture properly. Without Scripture, and a thorough understanding of its entirity and true meaning, we cannot know if Christ is in our hearts, for we could be mislead; since all must be weighed against Scripture.

That leaves us with the concept that salvation is in no ways anything we can do anything about; either God saves us by His Grace, and we comprehend Scripture and have Christ in our hearts, or we are lost trying to differentiate colors when we are inherently color-blind.

I think there is a difficulty here, and a contradiction in doctrine (not, as I so usually discuss, in the Scripture itself) that leads to confusion. Yet, we are assured, God is not the author of confusion.

There must be another way to interpret doctrine then. There must be a litmus test given to us by God as to what assumptions can be made, and what assumptions cannot be made; or "what to add to Scripture" and what not to.

Else, we are left with Grace alone, and none of this discussion of proper doctrine or interpretation is worth a tinker's damn. . .

I think this is probably one of your best posts. While I believe Christ wasn't married and Joseph and Mary did have sex, I see your point.

First, I want to say that that was a great post [referring to text in orange above]. I believe that all Christians interpret the Bible through the lenses of their own tradition, whether or not they acknowledge that they do so -- and I think that your point was very much along the same lines.

I would say this to Paul then. If it can't be proven either way that Mary remained a Virgin or not then it would be dangerous to base any kind of belief in her ability to intercede for us since we conclude there is no way to know if she was more 'special' than any other persons in the Bible. If you can't know for sure why would you risk a shaky doctrine in your life?

This is a minor point, but what I'm saying is that I can't absolutely prove it from the Bible alone. I'm trying to base my arguments as much as possible on the Bible alone, since I know that most Protestants believe in the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone).

More importantly, I think that to a large extent, these are two separate issues. Catholics also believe that other saints in heaven (besides Mary) can intercede for us (i.e., pray to God on our behalf), and it has nothing to do with whether or not they remained virgins during their lives here on earth.

[At this point, the discussion shifted to Mary's role in the Christian faith, and the question of whether or not we can or should pray to Mary, thus bringing the discussion on Mary's perpetual virginity to a close.]

Dialogue on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary – Page 3