As Christmas day approaches, we’re also confronted with a part of the faith that has caused great difficulty for Catholic and Protestant believers alike: the Virgin Birth. About a quarter of Americans deny the Virgin Birth (along with about a quarter of Anglican clergy in England). What should we say to these doubters? Why should we believe in the Virgin Birth, and why does it matter? Why was Jesus born of a Virgin? And why did the early Christians think this doctrine so important that they included it in both the Apostle’s Creed and Nicene Creed as a core part of what it is to hold the Christian faith?
One of the major problems with how we think of the Virgin Birth is that we often get it wrongly, or at least half-wrong. Here are four ways that we shouldn’t think about the Virgin Birth:
Inaccurate View #1: The Virgin Birth as Medical Oddity
Every now and again, within the “ordinary” course of nature, there are odd events: deformities, mutations, and freak occurrences of all kinds. But that’s not what the Virgin Birth is all about. It’s a miracle, which means that it is supernatural, not natural. If you miss this seemingly-obvious fact, you end up debating whether or not a woman (who has XX chromosomes) can give birth to a male (with XY), or positing insane theories of all kinds.
All of these objections can be summarized as “that can’t naturally happen, it would take a miracle!” Right. That’s the point. Stranger still, the objectors raising these points seem to think that “science” has disproven the Virgin Birth, as if the early Christians thought virgin births just happened sometimes. If we thought that these things just happened, we wouldn’t view them as miraculous.
Inaccurate View #2: The Virgin Birth as Necessary for Christ’s Divinity
The second mistaken view is to claim that it was absolutely necessary for Christ to be Incarnate of a Virgin, due to His Divinity. The idea is that human paternity is mutually exclusive with Divine paternity: that if Christ had a human Father, He couldn’t have had a Divine Father. For example, John Piper has claimed that, “A real incarnation of God in flesh demands a virgin conception. This is foundational, this is critical to our faith. If Jesus had a human mother and a human father, then Jesus is a man and not God.” GotQuestions adds “that having a biological father would have annulled Jesus’ deity. He could not have been the son of Joseph and the Son of God at the same time. “
This argument is wrong, and dangerous. It risks treating Christ as 50% human (from His mother’s side) and 50% divine (from His Father’s). As a result, it treats the Fatherhood of God as if it were on the same level as human fatherhood, so that the two would be in competition. This, of course, is wrong. It’s impossible to “annul” Jesus’ Divinity. If God – who chose for St. Joseph to be treated as a true father of Jesus, by adoption (Matthew 1:21; Luke 2:41, 51) – had chosen that Joseph would participate in the creation of the Flesh of Christ, this wouldn’t replace God’s eternal begetting of the Divine Son any more than Mary’s motherhood replaced the Divine begetting.
Nevertheless, Piper’s argument gets things half-right, or at least highlights something true. The Virgin Birth points to Christ’s Divinity and His sinlessness (more on both of these things shortly). So it was fitting for the sinless God-Man to be Incarnate in this way, but that’s a far cry from saying that God was absolutely required to do things this way.
Inaccurate View #3: The Virgin Birth is Irrelevant, since only the Virginal Conception Matters.
Particularly astute readers might have noticed that the last view doesn’t really hold that the Virgin Birth was necessary for the preservation of Christ’s Divinity. It holds rather that Christ’s conception needed to be Virginal (another reason it’s a bad argument for the Virgin Birth). This view is surprisingly common amongst Evangelical Protestants: the Virgin Conception was absolutely necessary (or Jesus couldn’t be God), but the Virgin Birth wasn’t particularly important. For example, the Institute for Creation Research (who hold to the bizarre view that Christ was specially created in such a way that He isn’t the biological Son of Mary) claim the following:
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Christian doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ has always been such a watershed between true Christians and either non-Christians or pseudoChristians. Without such a miraculous birth, there could have been no true incarnation and therefore no salvation. The man Jesus would have been a sinner by birth and thus in need of a Saviour Himself.
On second thought, however, one realizes that it was not the virgin birth which was significant, except as a testimony of the necessity of the real miracle, the supernatural conception. The birth of Christ was natural and normal in every way, including the full period of human gestation in the womb of Mary. In all points, He was made like His brethren, experiencing every aspect of human life from conception through birth and growth to death. He was true man in every detail, except for sin and its physical effects.
Within the span of a paragraph, the ICR document goes from claiming that the Virgin Birth was necessary for the Incarnation and our salvation to claiming that it wasn’t particularly significant and not “the real miracle.”
Scripture disagrees. Isaiah 7:14 says “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanu-el.” The miraculous sign has two aspects: (1) the Virginal Conception and (2) the Virgin Birth. We hear this passage again in Matthew 1:23 (Matthew rightly translates the Hebrew almah as “virgin” here) applied directly to the Virginal Conception and Birth of Christ. There’s a reason that Matthew goes to such lengths to establish that St. Joseph “knew her not until she had borne a son” (Matthew 1:25). He’s not, as many Protestants wrongly assume, saying that Joseph and Mary slept together on Christmas. He’s saying that Mary’s Virginity was preserved throughout the entirety of her pregnancy with the Christ Child, so that Christ’s conception and birth were miraculous and virginal.
The early Church recognized this. The Apostles’ Creed says that Jesus Christ “was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” The Nicene Creed likewise says that “by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” With both Scripture and the early Christians investing this much in the Virgin Birth, it’s safe to say that any view that leads you to treat it as an irrelevant afterthought to the real miracle is missing something fundamental.
Inaccurate View #4: The Virgin Birth was a spectacle.
The final way that the Virgin Birth is misunderstood is to think of it as a sort of Divine spectacle. Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23 refer to the Virgin Birth as part of a Divine “Sign,” and that term can easily be misunderstood as something dramatic and showy, the sort of event that would leave everyone unable to deny Christ’s divine origin. But that’s not the Sign that we’re given. Even St. Joseph has to work through the meaning of Mary’s mysterious pregnancy, with a bit of angelic assistance (Matthew 1:18-25). Those around the Holy Family, in turn, spoke of St. Joseph as Jesus’ father (Luke 4:22). And throughout the Gospels, we see people struggle to understand Who Jesus is, and where He’s from: “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:42)
So given all of the ways that we can misunderstand the Virgin Birth, how should we understand it?
What the Virgin Birth is All About
There are two reasons that God does things: either because they’re necessary, or because they’re “fitting.” In the case of the Virgin Birth, we’re talking about an instance of God doing the perfect thing, even when the approach He chose wasn’t strictly necessary. St. Thomas Aquinas gives us four reasons why God brought about the Incarnation in this way: (1) because it was fitting that the Son of God not have a biological human father; (2) the Son’s own perfection is glorified by having Him born through the perfect Virgin Mary; (3) because it befitted Christ’s dignity, as He was free from original sin; (4) to show that Divine sonship is a result of the power of God. Here’s how he explains that last point:
Fourthly, on account of the very end of Incarnation of Christ, which was that men might be born again as sons of God, “not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13), i.e. of the power of God, of which fact the very conception of Christ was to appear as an exemplar. Whence Augustine says (De Sanct. Virg.): “It behooved that our Head, by a notable miracle, should be born, after the flesh, of a virgin, that He might thereby signify that His members would be born, after the Spirit, of a virgin Church.”
But the other thing to notice about the conception and birth of Christ is Mary’s indispensability. The first clue we get about the Virgin Birth is in Genesis 3:15, in which God says that Satan will be at war with “the Woman” and with “her Seed.” “Seed” (the Hebrew word zera means both “semen” and “offspring”) is almost exclusively measured through the man; that it’s instead measured through “the Woman” is a nod towards Christ’s lack of a biological father. But this first reference to the Virgin Birth already includes a reference to the Virgin. It’s not just that Christ will be born of a woman, but “the Woman.” Mary was already part of the Divine plan of salvation from the first moment of the Fall.
In this case, Mary has three important roles: she’s the sole witness of the miracle of the Incarnation, she’s the locus for the miracle, and she’s a participant in the miracle. She willingly cooperates in the Incarnation in a singular way, and it’s only on her own unimpeachable testimony that we know of her perpetual virginity — which is itself one of the strongest proofs for the Divinity of Christ. When Isaiah and Matthew describe the Virgin Birth as a “Sign,” it’s because it’s understood that Christians will listen to Mary and believe her.
And Mary is also consecrated to God in a singular way. She’s His, wholly and completely. Her virginity is an image of the purity of her soul. She’s the Ark of the New Covenant, the Temple Gate surrounding the New Temple, and the New Eve. And so she remains a Virgin (both in the sense of celibate chastity, and in the sense of having her physical integrity undamaged by the conception and birth of her Son) to signal that purity and holiness (recall that “holy” means “to be set aside for God,” which is a perfect description of Mary’s role in salvation history). If you don’t understand this Marian role, the Virgin Birth doesn’t really make sense. If Mary’s just a random vessel used to bring the God of the Universe down to earth (the terrible view of motherhood that many of Mary’s opponents have articulated), then it wouldn’t matter whether or not she’s a Virgin after she conceives. But it’s because of Mary’s role, and what it tells us about Jesus Christ, that Scripture and the early Christians viewed as important Mary’s continued virginity, even after Christ’s miraculous conception.
A welcome and well-timed message. Thank you, Joe, and Holy Christmas.
You and Kendra Tierney had the same idea for Christmas posts. You might want to head over to her blog (http://www.catholicallyear.com/2015/12/the-blessed-virgin-and-blasting-out-of.html) if you’re interested in hearing how a lot of women struggle with this idea of Mary’s “physical integrity” being preserved during the birth of Christ. To sum up about 2/3 of the comments, many of us don’t understand what her “physical integrity” had to do with her virginity, and find the fixation of the church fathers on this point rather odd, to say the least. I, for one, would appreciate any clarity you might bring to the subject, should you be inclined to pop over and join the discussion – or discuss it further here.
Merry Christmas!
Elizabeth,
I see you’re not going to let me just dance around this one. Good: it’s an important question, and needs to be answered forthrightly. So with due warning that this will be a bit explicit, let’s continue.
First, you mentioned (rightly) that it’s possible for a virgin not to have an intact hymen. That’s true, but the opposite isn’t (barring a miracle). Goodyear-Smith & Laidlaw, in their review of the medical literature, conclude: “A non-scarred hymen that will not admit a finger is ‘intact’; a hymenal opening accommodating two fingers or a vaginal speculum, with evidence of a deficit or scarring at the lower pole, indicates past sexual or, possibly, non-sexual penetration.”
So if the Virgin Mary preserved her “physical integrity,” including an intact, non-scarred hymen, it demonstrates beyond doubt that the birth was miraculous. And this, in turn, bears witness to the truth of Christ’s claims about Himself.This, of itself, makes it worth acknowledging. and the early Christians were quick to do so.
Second, there’s a cultural context: virginity and “physical integrity” were closely tied together in the first-century mind (although the very fact that there’s a distinction between the Virginal Conception of Christ and Mary’s in partu Virginity suggests that they were aware that this wasn’t an ironclad correlation). It’s an “outward” sign of Mary’s virginity, even though it’s a sign no one else will see (precisely due to her virginity). So it’s fitting that Jesus Christ not remove this sign from His Mother, given that she is virgin par excellence.
The Catechism points to this in CCC 499, when it says: “The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the “Ever-virgin”.”
Third, there’s a connection to the Resurrection. Jesus’ unique birth prefigures that He will roll away the stone in His Resurrection.
Fourth, this points to Mary’s status as the Temple Gate of the New Temple (the Body of Christ). It would be unfitting for the birth of Christ to damage His Mother in any way, and her lack of physical scarring pays tribute to Him and His benevolence.
Fifth, this ties the Virgin Mary in to Israel and the Church. Isaiah 66:7-9 says:
“Before she was in labor
she gave birth;
before her pain came upon her
she was delivered of a son.
Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?
For as soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her sons.
Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth?
says the Lord;
shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?
says your God.”
Sixth, there were apocryphal works (like Deutero-Ezekiel and, I believe, the Protoevangelium of James) that were understood as supporting the Virgin Birth. While modern Christians wouldn’t put much stock in that, folks like St. Clement of Alexandria did. He writes in the Stromata, VII, 16:
“But, as appears, many even down to our own time regard Mary, on account of the birth of her child, as having been in the puerperal state, although she was not. For some say that, after she brought forth, she was found, when examined, to be a virgin.
“Now such to us are the Scriptures of the Lord, which gave birth to the truth and continue virgin, in the concealment of the mysteries of the truth. And she brought forth, and yet brought not forth, says the Scripture; as having conceived of herself, and not from conjunction. Wherefore the Scriptures have conceived to Gnostics; but the heresies, not having learned them, dismissed them as not having conceived.”
His cited supports are a rejected Christian “Gospel” and a version of Ezekiel that isn’t canonical, because he’s writing before the canon is set. I don’t meant this final point to either support or deny the doctrine, or to impugn St. Clement in any way, but just for the sake of thoroughness, since you questioned why the Fathers cared so much… part of the reason is that they read Jewish and Christian materials that stressed it as a sign.
Obviously, even with all of that, there’s much more that can be said. But hopefully this is at least a start.
Merry Christmas!
Joe
P.S. The constant hazard in upholding virginity is making husbands or (especially) wives feel like there’s something wrong or dirty about them for living out their vocation to the fullest. Sometimes, the Church Fathers can be guilty of this, frankly. But it is possible to view marital sexual relations and childbirth as beautiful and even holy, while recognizing that what the Virgin Mary experienced is radically higher yet.
In normal parlance, when someone is ‘born’ of another, it signifies the same as what happened with every one who lives in this world already knows. As everyone was indeed born either by vaginal birth or Caesarian section, it seems that the term should be easily recognizable by all. That is, when someone says that Nancy was ‘born’ at 9:30 PM, it doesn’t signify something general, such as Nancy ’emanated’ from her mother miraculously at 9:30 PM.
From my point of view, I have no problem with the Blessed Virgin Mary being a virgin before her pregnancy, at her pregnancy, and after her pregnancy until the end of her life. But I think that to assume miracles were needed during the birth of Jesus, is indeed pointing to an idea that for some reason or other birth itself is sinful. The ‘incarnation’ is the great miracle, wherein God is made man. But, in being ‘made man’, God is joined with every aspect of human life, and physical birth is obviously a very major part of the human experience.
I really don’t understand why the 1 hour of actually giving birth is so ‘impure’ as to cause a virgin to lose , or lessen, her virginity? It doesn’t make any sense. God, in His creation of all mammal life, is the author of this magnificent method of procreation. Is any of it sinful, or degrading, considering that God Himself is the author and creator? And if it isn’t degrading, why make all the fuss about it, as if it was? Does it really have anything to do with ‘virginity’? It seems that virginity has everything to do with sexual intercourse, and not just the rupture of a woman’s sexual organ which can be caused by mere athletics. Do all young women lose their virginity when they start advanced gymnastic training?
Truly, there seems to be some problem in defining precisely these two particular human acts:
1. human act of giving birth
2. human state of virginity
I sense that there was some confusion in the Early Church Fathers regarding both of these definitions when discussing the incarnation and birth of Jesus. As the Gospels use the common expression ‘born’ I would like to take the scripture at the common understanding as to how ‘being born’ is understood by everyone else who lives today, whether Christian or not. Otherwise, some other term would have been more suitable, such as ’emanated’, ‘proceeded miraculously’, ‘angelically delivered’, or some other concept.
And, if Mary was to have no particular difficulties in the birth, wherein miracles were always at hand, then why does the account of the lack of convenient lodging have such a particular focus in the Christmas account? And with St. Elizabeth, her pregnancy WAS the miracle, due to her very advanced age. There was no miracle associated with, or apparently necessary for the birth of John the Baptist. Likewise the great miracle in Christianity is the ‘incarnation’, and not the actual birth of Jesus.
This is just my opinion, but I think it is a great thing that God allowed so much of these things to remain a mystery. The entire childhood of Jesus was, for the greater part, left a mystery to us. And maybe this particular part of the nativity should also be allowed to remain a mystery?
Amen!
Also, in addition to Amen to the above, I find it interesting that there are so many speculations and meandering of thought surrounding the Biblical narrative. Taking the Lord’s word by faith seems more than enough. Often, unfortunately, extrabiblical comments can take on a life equal to the specific bible narrative. We all must labor diligently to align ourselves to the bible narrative. Certainly, discussion is crucial because these matters being discussed perhaps brought unbelieving scientists and scholars to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ so I don’t want to say the discussion is of no import, just that we should always stay aligned with the bible narrative by faith.
Victor, after some more reflection on the subject, I came up with another possibility that has some precedence in sacred scripture, and that is that miracle of the ‘virgin birth’ might be associated with a type of ‘transfiguration’ similar to that which occurred on Mt. Tabor, with Jesus, Moses and Elias. A fuller description is given about 8 comments below, which I addressed in response to Elizabeth. I hadn’t seen your comment until a few moments ago.
Best to you.
Thank you for this reply. It is a lot to think through, but I have to say that I find myself in agreement with awlms’ comment below. The point of the Incarnation was that God became fully human, that he experienced all that we experience. I still fail to understand what point there would have been to a miraculous birth. (Pain-free, yes, that makes sense to me. But this concept of Christ passing into the world “like light through glass” is really just a bit too much for me to wrap my mind around at this point.) Yes, He did move His physical body through solid objects – after his Resurrection – but at the same time, when He came out of the tomb, it was opened for Him. He didn’t just pass through the rock.
Does the passage of the Catechism that you quote mean to equate Mary’s physical state with her virginity? I had always assumed that when Mary was referred to as the “ever-Virgin”, it was a reference to her ongoing virginity after Christ’s birth. An intact hymen is so far divorced from whether or not a woman is a virgin in my own mind, it honestly never occurred to me to question that Mary gave birth to Christ in the normal way. I don’t really understand what the point would have been of an “outward sign” that no one would ever see.
I have to confess I also object to your fourth point. In his conception and birth, Christ irrevocably damaged his mother’s reputation in the eyes of all who knew her. He threw her life into complete upheaval, and put her on the path to experience tremendous pain and grief. What is a normal birth compared to that? How is it less fitting for Him to damage his mother physically, than to damage her reputation as a pure and chaste woman?
I have to say, also, that my husband (who is not Catholic – I just converted this past January) finds this whole discussion bizarre and actually disrespectful towards the Blessed Mother, which I think is a bit ironic given that he is a Protestant. He cannot understand the focus on her physical state, which is really unknowable to us.
I appreciated your postscript, and would like to say that several of the women who joined the discussion on Kendra’s blog stated that this teaching on the birth of Christ actually did make them struggle with their perception of marriage and birth as somehow defiling, so if this is a teaching the Church holds, it will be very important for it to be taught in a way that will not create this confusion for young women – something the Church has clearly not excelled at in the past.
I very much appreciate your thorough reply to my questions. Please excuse my somewhat disjointed reply; it’s late, and my children are still awake, so I’m not able to give this the focused attention I would like. I’ve enjoyed your blog for some time, and always appreciate hearing your thoughts.
I appreciate Elizabeth’s question. This article left me scratching my head a tad, because it seems to be more about the Immaculate Conception rather than the virgin birth. Christmas blessings.
I can help a little bit there: You are experiencing a common confusion among Protestants. The Immaculate Conception refers to the doctrine that Mary was preserved free from stain of sin from the moment she was conceived. The Virgin Conception refers to the doctrine that states Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, although she was a virgin. The idea of the Virgin Birth, referred to in the article above, states that Mary’s physical integrity was not violated during the birth process – she remained physically a virgin during and after the birth. That final one is the one I find so odd in all its manifestations as the church fathers discuss it…because being a virgin means never having had sexual intercourse, which is really unrelated to whether a woman’s hymen is intact or not. (Forgive me for being blunt – there’s really no way to discuss this particular theological point without it, which is the other reason I find the seeming fixation of the church fathers on this point really odd.)
One possibility might be that in the divine providence of God Jesus was born by a providential type of c-section surgery? It might have been miraculous, through the power of angels, at the same time? I’m considering the fact that the first Eve was taken and formed from a ‘rib’ of Adam. This also connotes an idea of a type of miraculous surgery. If the first Eve was taken from the first Adam in this way, maybe the second, or ‘new’, Adam was taken in a like matter from the Second, or ‘new’ Eve? There might be some parallels between the two events to consider??
Just a ‘brainstorm’ type of consideration. I really think that if the Gospels left unrevealed these mysteries for us regarding the particulars of the sacred birth of Jesus, then maybe it is best to just wait until all is revealed in Heaven, without too much speculation on something that really isn’t much of our business to focus on?
One other short note.
It seems that a gynecologist could assess the risks to a virgin mother such as Mary was, and particularly consider the problems that might occur with a young woman in Mary’s particular circumstance. Maybe it was physically risky for both Jesus and Mary to wait for a completely normal type of birth due to the obvious medical problems inherent in her particular circumstance. I think it must have crossed St. Joseph’s mind that Mary was in a very particular physical condition, and which some concern must have occurred regarding potential risks before the birth of Jesus. And these potential complications must have been considered by everyone involved, even St. Elizabeth, and she might have given some wisdom and consultation to Mary on the potential difficulties in such a singular childbirth. That Mary assisted the elderly Elizabeth with St. John the Baptist also gives a hint that both Mary, and Elizabeth, would assist each other in their very particular and difficult pregnancy conditions, whether physically or by mere consultation. So, it seems pretty obvious that Mary might receive some very beneficial experience in helping her cousin Elizabeth, which is what was mandated by the angel Gabriel.
Also, it is known that in ancient history types of Caesarian section proceedures were actually in practice even earlier than the time of Jesus.Moreover, the very name ‘Caesarean’ is derived from the title ‘Caesar’, and this name comes particularly from the time of Julius Caesar who lived from 100 BC. to 44BC.
Again, these are just some possible ideas for consideration, and especially for somebody like a knowledgable pediatrician, or gynecologist, who actually understands in depth the physiology related to pregnancy and child bearing.
There shouldn’t have been any medical problem inherent in Mary’s particular situation, other than the obvious sanitation issues caused by giving birth in a stable. It’s a very thin membrane. It tears easily, under many different circumstances often unrelated to sexual intercourse. A baby coming through the birth canal wouldn’t have any trouble getting through it, if it were still there.
Thanks for the clarification. I thought it might have been more significant.
Elizabeth,
After some reflection I do find some scriptural precedent for the “light through glass” analogy that some of the Fathers of the Church used. This would be in consideration of the ‘transfiguration’ of Jesus on the Mount, as well as the Resurrection. The ‘burning bush’, the ‘glowing of Moses’ face, and the transfiguration found in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, also, can point in the direction that Jesus might have been transfigured at the moment of His birth.
And not only Jesus, it is possible that Mary too was transfigured, even as Moses and Elias were, on theMount with Jesus.
When St. Francis of Assisi received the stigmata, it was reported that a visible light was seen on Mt Alverna, and that some travelers saw the brilliant light and thought that it was the sun coming up in the morning, and so they awoke and started their journey. Shortly after, they saw the real sun rise, and they were confounded as to what was going on.
So, this might have happened with the Holy Family also. As no one really knows what transfiguration actually is, this is all speculation, but Jesus could have passed through the uterus of Mary in a transfigured state. Jesus would be the literal transfigured ‘light’, and Mary would have been the transfigured ‘glass’ that the the Fathers were talking about?
At least there is some scriptural precedence for this possibility.
These examples are, I think, the most convincing argument I’ve heard yet. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hi, Elizabeth,
You’re a woman and therefore, in my opinion, in a better position to understand this question than most men.
Let me ask you. If you were God, (Jesus is God, right?), and therefore, it was within your power to grant this favor to your mom. The favor being that she would not be harmed by your, either being conceived in her womb nor by your exiting her womb. Would you afford your mom this gift?
As for me, I know what I would do. I would do as Jesus did. I’d protect my mom from everything. Especially from myself. If it were in my power, my mom would be a perpetual virgin.
But it isn’t within my power.
Now, the Commandment of God says, “Honor your mother”. What sort of honor would Jesus have shown His mother if His presence within her and His exiting her body would have caused her permanent pain and permanent scarring?
But, you’re a woman, possibly a mom, yourself. What would you have done, in Jesus’ place? If you were Jesus’, would Mary be called the Blessed Virgin? Or something else?
Regarding ‘Innaccurate View #2’:
It seems to me that Christ not having a biological father is necessary in a sense. You say people who think this risk making Christ 50% man and 50% God. Maybe this is “dangerous” or “risky” because someone could draw the 50/50% split conclusion erroneously. But it’s not really relevant what wrong conclusion someone COULD draw. You say that it is false to say that having a Divine Father and an earthly father are mutually exclusive. I would suggest that this is not true. I suggest they are mutually exclusive in the sense of NATURE. I think having a Divine Father and human Mother would simply make Christ true God and true man, by nature. In other words, he would have 100% human nature and 100% God’s nature, not 50/50%.
If Christ had 2 physical human parents, He would have human nature only. He would have to be called an ‘adopted’ son of God, but not God by nature. Hence, Christ could not be ‘true’ God, or God by nature, if he had an earthly father as well.
It seems to me that one is either a natural son, or an adopted son.
Human + Human = Human (A human can later receive the Holy Spirit and become an adopted son of God, but not a natural son.)
Human + Holy Spirit = Human & God
Anyway, this is how I see it. If someone wants to show me where or why this thinking is wrong, I would love to hear it. Keep up the good work!