Joe Heschmeyer addresses common objections to the Assumption of Mary, showing why they ultimately fail.

Transcription:

Joe:

Welcome back to Shameless Popery; I’m Joe Heschmeyer. So the assumption of Mary, that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven was not declared a dog bomb the Catholic church until 1950. Some of you watching or listening to this were literally alive when that happened. So I completely understand when Protestants are dubious and say, I don’t think there’s a good biblical or historical case for that dogma. What I want to do today is explore what I think of as some of the better Protestant arguments against the assumption of Mary, and then show you why I think that they ultimately fail and in fact, why I think one of them ends up being a bette r argument for Mary’s assumption. And then I’m going to lay out a positive case for why I think biblically historically, theologically, we should believe Mary was assumed into heaven, including there are some arguments you probably haven’t heard of before.

So as we begin, let’s just say this, I don’t know that there’s a silver bullet argument in either direction. I think if there were, we would’ve found it by now and the argument would be over. Instead, you have to do a little bit of weighing of the evidence. I’ll get to what I think is the closest to a silver bullet argument at the end of this episode. But until then be thinking about, okay, how much weight do I give each of these individual arguments? I’m going to start with the strongest Protestant arguments, and these are going to be the arguments from silence. I think there are three of them. The first one is that scripture is silent, that the New Testament does not include any explicit passage that says Mary died and then was taken up body and soul into heaven. And that’s true enough, right?

I don’t think we’re going to find, you can’t cite chapter and verse. Here is an explicit, undeniable piece of evidence. If that existed, Protestants wouldn’t be protesting this. Now the people making this argument fall into two categories. One group is arguing, assuming Sola scriptura to be true, and they’re assuming in other words, that all doctrines to be true have to be derived from the New Testament. And I would just say if that’s the argument, that’s number one kind of an argument for a different day that’s more about solos scriptura than N is about Mary. And number two, I think it’s ultimately a self refuting argument if that’s your understanding of solos scriptura, and please, I know in the comments other people interpret solos scriptura differently, but if you think solo S script means that you as a Protestant have to find all doctrines in scripture, I would only suggest the doctrine itself of solo s scriptura does not exist in scripture.

And in fact, in two Thessalonians two 15, we see it’s clearly contradicted by scripture where St. Paul tells us not to hold to scripture alone, but to those traditions taught both orally and in writing. Nevertheless, a lot of Protestants make the assumption isn’t found in scripture argument, not because they’re presupposing solo scriptura, but just because they’re assuming, well, look, if this really happened, why don’t we get any written account of it? Now, this is at the outset an argument from silence, but I want to be clear. I don’t think an argument from silence is necessarily bad, but an argument from silence to be convincing has to meet a particular threshold. Number one, if X occurred in this case, the assumption of Mary, we should expect Y to report about it. Y in this case is the New Testament, but it could be the early church or whoever.

We’ll get into that. That’s the first premise that has to be true for the argument from silence to work. Because if you wouldn’t expect them to report about it, oh, there was a world event and ESPN didn’t report about it, well, you wouldn’t expect them to. They cover sports. They don’t cover world news, so their silence doesn’t mean anything. So if X occurred, we should expect Y to report about it. If the assumption of Mary happened, we should expect the New Testament to talk about it. We’re going to analyze whether that’s true or not. In a second here, number two, Y does not report about it. That then leads you to the third, which is the conclusion. Therefore, it’s unlikely that X occurred. So that’s the format of the argument. That first premise is what I really want to investigate. The first thing to think about here is chronologically many of the New Testament texts, and there’s a wide debate about when the writings of the New Testament are from.

So I don’t want to commit to any one position there, but only to suggest that historically Christians have believed that a lot of the New Testament documents were written relatively early in the life of the church, including in most cases probably before Mary even died. It’s not particularly surprising that Matthew, mark, Luke, and John wouldn’t write about the death of Mary when that’s not in the time period that they’re covering and maybe chronologically had not happened yet, so we wouldn’t expect that. In other words, so that argument from silent suddenly becomes kind of unconvincing in the same way that you wouldn’t expect Old Testament texts to give you a detailed account about the birth of Jesus. They might refer to it prophetically, but they’re not going to refer to it historically. It hadn’t happened yet. So two is something like the assumption of Mary. The New Testament text might refer to it prophetically, but they’re not going to describe it historically if it hasn’t happened yet.

That’s the first thing I’d say. One of the reasons I don’t expect a lot of the New Testament to talk about the assumption of Mary is because it hadn’t occurred yet. The second reason though is because there were a lot of events that we know happened or had to have happened that weren’t talked about. I’m going to give you a couple examples because I think this premise that if a miracle occurred, like the assumption of Mary that the New Testament authors would write about it is contradicted pretty clearly by the New Testament itself. I’ll give you two examples. First one is one Corinthians chapter 15. This is the famous Corinthian Crete St. Paul is listing all of the resurrection appearances of Jesus that were in this early creed that the Christians had one of those. In verses six to seven, he talks about how Jesus appeared to James and then to the apostles.

Now think about this. This is important enough to make it into the earliest statement of the Christians, and yet it makes a single line in one Corinthians and Paul doesn’t explain it and what’s more, as David Edwards points out, Matthew, mark, Luke and John never talk about it. This is a resurrection appearance. This is of obviously more important than just about anything in Christianity, and yet Matthew, mark, Luke, and John give it zero words. Paul gives it a single verse. Now Edward suggests it’s possible that James is one of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and so we do know about it, but we don’t know about it as James because the funny thing is we don’t actually know for sure which James is even in view here. If it’s James the brother of our Lord, then it could be that this is Jesus’s cousin and the named disciple on the road to Emmaus is Cleopas.

Jesus has an uncle according to his second century author by the name of pus named K CLOs. So maybe lop and Cleopas are the same person and it’s a father and son walking together. It’s Jesus’s uncle and cousin, but we sure don’t know that for sure. All we know for sure is there is a single verse suggesting Jesus appeared to James and nobody in the New Testament bothered to tell us about it in any clear direct way. What makes this even more striking is that St. Paul met with Peter and James, he talks about this, and so assuming this is the same James, it seems very unlikely that Paul wouldn’t know the details of this resurrection appearance and yet he doesn’t talk about them. Now, Edward suggests maybe the Corinthians already knew about them, but the point there is you can hardly build a strong argument from silence on the basis that if X miracle happened, the New Testament writers would write about it when we know of at least one very clear case, a resurrection appearance where that didn’t happen.

But what’s more, and this is the second example, John tells us that there are a lot of other things that Jesus did that he’s not going to take the time to write about. He tells us that in John 2030 to 31 and then at the end of John 21, he suggested if we wrote all those things, we wouldn’t have enough books. Bear in mind in the first century you couldn’t type. You had to write by hand and it was often a laborious and even expensive process, particularly if you had to hire someone who could write for you. And so as a result, first century authors are often pretty conservative in the details that they include and that includes the New Testament authors. So you can hardly build a convincing argument from silence on the fact that among the various other things, Matthew, mark, Luke, John, Paul, and the others leave out, they leave out the assumption of Mary an event that may not have happened at the time. Most of them are writing. Alright? That’s the first argument. I’ll be clear. I think that’s the strongest arguments Protestants have. I just don’t think it’s particularly strong. The second argument is that the early Christians were silent. Now here’s James White presenting a version of that argument. What you have as dogma

CLIP:

Today in regards to bodily assumption of Mary utterly absolutely unknown to the early church unknown, but they simply have to assume it. Well, because Rome has said so because Rome has said so.

Joe:

You’ll find that argument a lot by Protestant authors and it’s simply not true. It’s true that we don’t have a ton, but to say it’s unknown or that we have nothing in the early church is flatly untrue. Now, when I lay out the positive case, we’ll see that in depth, but for not wanting you to hold onto this idea, think about the way they’re using arguments from silence here because we’re going to come back to that and show that actually the early Christian arguments from silence point exactly in the opposite direction. The third argument against the assumption of Mary is another argument from silence. This is the argument that the doctrine wasn’t defined until 1950, as I mentioned at the top of the episode. Now, here’s John MacArthur making some kind of argument based on that,

CLIP:

The doctrine of the assumption. You may have heard of that, the assumption or the ascension. This doctrine didn’t find a place in the actual cannon of Catholic theology until 1950. It was in November the first 1950. Pope Pius the 12th made it official that Mary ascended into heaven.

Joe:

So first of all, that’s completely wrong. He’s conflating the ascension, which is what Jesus did where he goes into heaven by his own power and the assumption where Mary is taken up by the power of Christ into heaven. When we talk about our resurrection the last day, when we will God willing be body and soul with Jesus in heaven, we’re not claiming to have the power to ascend by our own divine authority like Jesus does. So the fact that he got something that basic wrong is a huge red flag. If you don’t know the difference between the ascension and the assumption, don’t preach on it. But second, as MacArthur himself is going to admit, the roots of the assumption are much deeper than 1950. Now, I’d say two things here. Number one, this past summer the Southern Baptist Convention tried unsuccessfully to add language that only men can be pastors at the Southern Baptist Convention like the gathering of the SBC.

Now, someone who knew nothing about Southern Baptist the way MacArthur knows nothing about early Christianity might assume aha, the idea that only men can be pastors must be some new idea in the 21st century and that’s why they’re trying to define it. But of course, anyone who knows at all what they’re talking about would know no, no. The only reason they’re trying to define it is now this thing that had been taken for granted is now being disputed, right? Sometimes you don’t define a thing until it’s under attack. That’s mostly how Christian history works. So any argument based on what year a thing was dogmatize or defined is almost by definition of that argument. So Steven Schumacher, who is himself skeptical of the early history of the assumption and Dormish acknowledges that we find feasts even in Jerusalem from probably no later than around the beginning of the sixth century, like the early five hundreds.

So the idea that 1950 being the when it’s defined tells us something important, it just doesn’t. This is part of the rosary. Catholics had been praying in the glorious mysteries about the assumption and the coronation of Mary in the fourth and fifth glorious mystery the entire time the rosary’s been around. This is not something new to the 20th century as we’re going to see Catholic Orthodox and Coptic Christians who have not been in union with each other since the four hundreds all believe in this dogma. So as we’re weighing, as I say, these are the three strongest arguments, these are all arguments from silence and I would suggest that while they may give us some indication, they don’t actually tell us a whole lot and they’re not as strong as the Protestants presenting them, pretend that they are. So let’s turn now to three arguments against the assumption.

What I mean is those first three arguments don’t tell us the assumption of Mary is bad or contrary to the New Testament. They just say, I’m not convinced it’s found in the New Testament. I’m not convinced it’s found in early Christianity. Those are arguments that you haven’t proved your case well enough Catholic, but the next three arguments are going to be people arguing. No, it’s actually wrong to believe in the assumption of Mary. For some reason, the first of these negative arguments, these arguments against the assumption is that Christ doesn’t share his royal authority. Now, this is from God questions. Unfortunately, I can only find it in text form, so you’re going to have to deal with a robot talking to you for a second.

CLIP:

There is no queen of heaven. There has never been a queen of heaven. There is most certainly a king of heaven, the Lord of hosts, he alone rules in heaven. He does not share his rule or his throne or his authority with anyone. The idea that Mary, the mother of Jesus is the queen of heaven has no scriptural basis whatsoever. Instead, the idea of Mary as the queen of heaven stems from proclamations of priests and popes of the Roman Catholic church.

Joe:

Before we even talk about Mary, let’s just acknowledge how bad of an argument that is. When you look at the book of Revelation, for instance, John sees elders on 24 Thrones and then he tells us in Revelation 20 verse four that he saw thrones and seated on them or those to whom judgment was committed. You’re going to tell me that Christ doesn’t share his throne in his royal authority with his people. Have you read the Bible in Matthew 19? Jesus tells the 12 tells to the 12 that they are the ones who followed him and that they will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. This imagery of sharing in the judgment of Christ by sharing the throne with him is all over the New Testament, and it’s not just for the 24 elders, it’s not just for the 12 apostles in two Timothy St.

Paul quotes a saying that if we have died with him, we shall also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign with him and we’re to believe Christ doesn’t share his authority again. Have you read the New Testament? First, Peter tells us that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. So before we even get into the verses about Mary in heaven in revelation, let’s just acknowledge this is built on theological nonsense. Of course, Christ shares his royal authority. So this argument that the assumption of Mary is bad because it would mean Christ is sharing his royal authority is an argument not against the assumption of Mary, but an argument against Christianity and the promises he makes to his people that we are a royal priesthood in a holy nation. Alright? The next argument is that this whole idea of the queen of heaven is pagan because in the Old Testament, couple times in Jeremiah we hear about a queen of heaven who is a pagan idol.

CLIP:

Queen of heaven was actually a common pagan title given to a number of ancient sky goddesses which were worshiped thousands of years ago in the ancient world in the Mediterranean near East cultures and even the Roman Catholic church borrowed from paganism by calling Mary the queen of heaven. This is not biblical and this is totally opposed to the one true in living God who is our father.

Joe:

Now, he doesn’t bother to sighting sources, but if he did, the two that usually get cited here are Jeremiah seven and Jeremiah 44 and Jeremiah seven were told about how the children gather wood, the father’s Kindle fire and the women need dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven. They’re making sacrificial grain offerings to a goddess called the queen of heaven, and God is clearly unhappy with this and in Jeremiah 44, the people tell Jeremiah they’re not going to listen to God and instead they’re going to keep doing that. They’re going to continue to burn incense to the queen of heaven, pour out Ians to her as they and their fathers had done. Now, the question I have is, is this a good argument at all? And the answer is no. I think there’s a very clear way of showing this. One of the major idols that the Israelites faced off against was ball.

You may remember numerous times where we’re being exhorted to follow God rather than ball, but if you ask what his name means, it doesn’t mean like a round rubber thing you bounce but all means Lord. And you might remember that we regularly say Jesus is Lord. In fact, in one Corinthians 12 we’re told no one can say Jesus’s Lord except by the Holy Spirit. That doesn’t mean that Jesus and Ball are the same person just because both names are linked to Lord, right? This etymological game of, oh, well you said queen of heaven and there’s a pagan named queen of heaven, therefore you must be referring to the pagan could just as easily be used against Jesus by saying, oh, you said Jesus is Lord and Lord is ball and ball’s a pagan. This is a bad argument, but what’s more it’s directly unbiblical again, because in Revelation 12, and like I say we’re going to get into this, John sees a sign in heaven, a woman clothed the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars.

Now, what is a crown? A sign of royal authority that tells us both God is happy to share his royal authority with somebody, and two, this is a vision of a heavenly queen. Sure, she’s not named queen of heaven because you don’t have to say queen of heaven to understand the crowned person in heaven who’s a woman is queen because that’s what that’s referring to. So I mentioned this to say any argument based on the phrase queen of heaven, as if it’s inherently pagan to say Queen of heaven is absurd, just like it’s not inherently pagan to say, Lord, the sixth and final Protestant argument is the idea, the assumption is itself somehow pagan and idolatrous. So I’m going to go back to John MacArthur where he’s going to admit that the roots of the assumption are much older than 1950, but then tell us a very bizarre version of history.

CLIP:

Now, this idea about Mary though it really wasn’t formally dogmatize until 20th century goes way, way back and you start to read about this in the fifth century as paganism and pagan goddess worship at the very earliest gets mingled. Remember the Holy Roman empire as it was called the Holy Roman empire, was really not holy. It was Roman for sure, but the emperor in the 3 25 decided that the best thing to do to unify the great empire was to make everybody automatically a Christian. And since the place that the empire was rife with paganism, they just married a kind of Christianity with paganism and all of this came very early.

Joe:

It kills me that John MacArthur doesn’t just butcher history there, he butchers a joke. The joke is that the Holy Roman empire is neither holy nor Roman nor an empire because the Holy Roman empire is a different thing than the Roman Empire, even though he conflates them, the Holy Roman empire is founded in 800. It didn’t do anything in three 50, didn’t do anything in 3 25. He has no idea what he’s talking about. The joke is the Holy Roman empire is basically modern day Germany and some of the surrounding area, so it’s not really the Roman empire. That’s the joke. I hate having to explain a joke, but MacArthur’s history here is really bad. No, it’s just not true that in 3 25 there was any kind of law passed that everybody automatically became a Christian. That did not happen. He’s making that up where he’s getting it from somewhere.

I have no idea where, and it doesn’t make any sense that pagans are the one who gave us the idea of the assumption of Mary because remember, the assumption isn’t an ascension and how would that make any sense with a goddess religion, the idea that Christians go to heaven is not something we’re getting from paganism. It’s something we’re getting from Christianity. The idea that we’re going to be body and soul in heaven is again not something we’re getting from paganism, something we’re getting from Christianity. What goddess has that story where she’s the mother of a God and then is raised into heaven and becomes a goddess? That is what version of Roman paganism is teaching this. You can’t just throw out this nonsensical fake history and expect people to believe it because it’s, I mean I don’t doubt people do believe it, but it’s completely untrue.

David Mills back when he was editor first sings made a point that I’ve found very insightful. He talks about how there’s some Protestants who are dubious of the assumption. Those are the first three arguments I mentioned and then there are Protestants who think that the idea that Jesus’s mother was assumed into heaven is somehow itself bad and he says, I don’t understand why because he says it’s a radically humanistic statement, an affirmation of men in Christ what God wants to do for all of us and will do for many at the end of time. It seems fitting and theologically sensible. This bias explains that if God will do this for someone in history, he will have done it for the immaculately conceived woman who bore the son of God. Let’s unpack what he’s saying there. The point there is no one should object to the idea that God wants us body and soul in heaven.

No one should object to the idea that God wants us to reign with Christ. That is just plainly New Testament. And if that’s your objection to the assumption of Mary, you need to read the New Testament again b... Read more on Catholic.com