The idea that Mary was a perpetual virgin isn’t something I’ve paid much attention to as I’ve not really felt the need before. I have written once on the subject here. I reshared the article recently because the topic had come up on my Facebook timeline but I noticed that I’d assumed when I first wrote that this was solely a Catholic issue.
It turns out that my assumption was wrong. The reason the issue came up on my timeline was that John Stevens, FIEC National Director had made some comments to the effect that he couldn’t see how you could possibly justify belief in the idea. This caused him to get a lot of flack, I think in the main from Anglicans but from what I could see, it was from people who would classify themselves as Evangelical.
The point of their grievance seemed to be that John had suggested that there wasn’t a credible basis for taking the claim serious. Apart from the thin attempts to play around with the pain meaning of Scripture and speculation about who Jesus’ brothers were that I deal with in my previous article, the main argument seemed to be that consistently though church history, Perpetual Virginity had been taught. This included the early church Fathers and also the Reformers. The argument seemed to be that they couldn’t possibly all be wrong.
It’s worth noting at this point that that Calvin’s position is rather ambiguous. He doesn’t think that Matthew1:25 excludes perpetual virginity but nor does he think that Mary takes a vow of virginity in Luke 1. There were others throughout church history who disagreed with the idea. Further, we can trace back when the idea began to dominate in the Church to 200AD onwards and also trace the source of the idea back into some of the non-canonical pseudo-gospels.
We might also note that there has been unified opinion on other matters through church history and including the reformers. One example is paedobaptism and indeed the same arguments are used in support of that view.
What we are seeing is a form of logical fallacy, the appeal to authority and commonality. “Lots’ of people who we tend to trust on the whole believe this, so we should too.” That’s very poor reasoning. It’s subjective rather than objective proof. Those figures in church history are all, individually and corporately fallible humans. When we listen to them, it is because what they say aligns with Scripture. God’s Word has authority over them and not vice versa.
Nor does our respect for the people and their overall teaching mean that we have to respect everything that they said and did. Not only can normally wise Christians be wrong, they can be foolishly wrong.
This is the case with perpetual virginity. It is clearly nonsense. It betrays an unhealthy, anti-Gospel view of the physical body, marriage and the family. It links in to some of the most unhelpful aspects of Catholic theology and practice throughout history. It is a ridiculous view and we do not need to pretend otherwise.
Faithroots 