In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared in an “Apostolic
Constitution” of the Catholic Church:
“…We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a
divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin
Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and
soul into heavenly glory.” (Munificentissimus
Deus, paragraph 44)
Note that this is not just any kind of teaching, it is
a DOGMA (an irreversible and “infallibly declared” doctrinal statement of the
Catholic Church). Catholics are required to believe it, and if they
don’t, the pope goes on to say, “Let him know that he has fallen away
completely from the divine and Catholic faith...” and will “incur the wrath of
Almighty God…” This same dogma is also
found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC #966 and #974) and in the Catholic Church’s “Dogmatic
Constitution,” Lumen Gentium
(paragraph 59).
Ok, as you might expect, the
word “assumption” has several
meanings in English, but the only ones we want to focus on now that are
relevant to this topic are these two basic meanings:
#1) It can mean the Catholic
Church’s idea of the taking up of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, into Heaven,
body and soul, which is celebrated every year by Catholics on August 15. Or,
#2) It can mean an assuming that something is true; a mistaken assumption; a
statement (such as a proposition, axiom or notion) taken for granted or accepted as true without
proof; a supposition.
When Catholics use the term,
“Mary’s Assumption,” they are speaking of meaning #1 above.
But we Protestants would
apply the meaning of #2 above toward the Catholic Church’s teaching itself on
Mary’s Assumption and say that it is an assumption indeed, i.e., it is assumed and cannot be proven.
We also maintain that Mary’s Assumption is not
biblical, i.e., it cannot be found in the Bible. To this idea, Catholic speaker, author, and
apologist John Martignoni tells us in one of his latest newsletters that when
someone says that Mary’s Assumption is not in the Bible, he (Martignoni) says:
“Well, I generally handle
this objection to the Church’s teaching on the Assumption by asking one
question: ‘Does the Bible somewhere say that Mary was not assumed into
Heaven?’ The answer, of course, is no –
the Bible nowhere says that Mary was not assumed into Heaven. So then I ask, ‘Well if the Bible doesn’t say
she wasn’t assumed into Heaven, then why can’t I believe she was?’”
Martignoni’s newsletter can
be found here:
So why can’t you believe that
she was assumed into Heaven? Well, John,
it’s because it is just an assertion, and you need evidence to back up that assertion.
Note first that John Martignoni wants us to prove a negative – to prove the non-existence
of Mary’s assumption. But when anyone
makes a positive assertion (like “Mary was assumed into Heaven, body and
soul”), the burden of proof is on him
to prove it, not on us to disprove it.
But when they are unable to prove it, they sometimes
resort to the “double-negative” tactic, like Martignoni does. Almost any time an opponent mentions a double-negative
like he does here (e.g., “The Bible does NOT say that she WASN’T assumed”),
this is a sign that the person is getting desperate. Simply saying, “But the Bible doesn’t say it didn’t happen to Mary” is not a valid argument at all. We could also say the same thing for dozens
of other people in Scripture – “The Bible also doesn’t say that it didn’t
happen to (whomever - fill in the blank), therefore it could have also happened to them,
as well!”
Fortunately, most people are
understanding enough to see through this very poor argument. Just saying that it is possible does not make it true… for Mary or anyone else.
We do want to point out that
no one is saying that the concept of a bodily assumption is not biblical. We agree that it certainly can be. But the biblical question is not whether it can happen, or has happened,
but the question is “To whom has it
happened?”
We have clear biblical
evidence that Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2
Kings 2:11) experienced some sort of bodily assumption. But we have no biblical evidence of anything
like this happening to Mary. So it seems
strange that the Bible would mention the assumption of Enoch and Elijah, but
not Mary’s. No Catholic would deny that she is more
important than Enoch or Elijah. So, if
that’s true, then why the silence on her
assumption?
As an attempt at producing
“biblical evidence” for the Assumption, Catholics will sometimes point to Revelation
12:1, which speaks of the “woman clothed with the sun,” and will say
that this is Mary in bodily form in Heaven.
But this is not the case at all.
The “woman” in Revelation 12 is Israel, not Mary. See
here:
There are a few other Bible
verses that some Catholics will try to use in an attempt to show that this
teaching is biblical. They will use all
kinds of unverifiable typology where they see “Mary” in every object and under
every stone, and try to shoehorn her into an “assumption role.” But they must go to absurd lengths to make
any of these “types” fit.
In conclusion, just saying
that something is true does not make it true.
Saying that it is “fitting” or that it should have happened also does not make it a fact. If it were a biblical idea, we wouldn’t have
an issue with it. But it is not. Yet, the Catholic Church claims that the
Assumption of Mary is not only a scriptural truth, but a dogma that her members
are obligated to believe, but the
Church fails miserably in providing evidence for this teaching.
Furthermore, most Catholics
don’t know that the origin of the teaching
of the Assumption is very questionable and is “shrouded in history’s mist.” It was not
the teaching of the church for 2000 years, as Catholics claim. It was not taught by the early church fathers
and it cannot be traced back to the
apostles. In fact, it first appears in
“apocryphal” (hidden, false, doubtful, uninspired) literature around the fifth century
that was condemned by (at least) two popes as HERESY.
See this article:
Some Catholics will say, “But Mary had to have been bodily assumed. There are no relics (bones, ashes, clothing, etc.) from her that were ever found. Surely, if there were, this would have been mentioned in the early church.” But if Mary’s bones would “surely” have been mentioned, then why hasn’t something as important as the Assumption “surely” been mentioned in the same early church?
So why is this topic important in the first place? It is because the Catholic Church is using not just this one teaching, but many different Marian teachings to divert attention away from Jesus onto Mary, His mother. The Mary of the Bible - the humble handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38, 48) - would never approve of such attention toward herself, nor the detracting of attention from her Son. As we’ve said before, the real Mary would join with John the baptist in saying, “He (Jesus) must increase, but I (Mary) must decrease (John 3:30). But the very opposite is happening in the Catholic Church worldwide. Whether intentional or not, the Catholic Church has created an idol in Mary through all these unbiblical claims. But the Bible tells us to flee idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:14).
Once again, the Catholic
Church’s teaching on Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven is just that, an assumption in the worst sense, a
concept that cannot be proven from God’s Word or from any other reputable
source.
