The Queen of Heaven – The Blessed Virgin Mary
I have responded to Matt Slick in the past. Not long ago, I wrote a piece against his views on the Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. Since Slick has criticized many other doctrines of the Catholic Church, I thought that I would respond to some of them. Today I will tackle his argument that Mary cannot be the Queen of Heaven in Revelation 12:1-2. His article on this issue can be found here:
https://carm.org/revelation12mary
According to the Protestant New American Standard Version which Slick often quotes, Rev 12:1-2 reads:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.
In Matt Slick’s article, he stated:
If you notice the text in verse 2 it says that she was “with child and she cried out being in labor and in pain.” This is a problem because according to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, Mary did not inherit Original Sin.
It is most certainly true that according to Catholicism, Mary did not inherit Original Sin. This is known as the Immaculate Conception as Slick correctly points out. Slick continues and says that because of Adam’s sin which is transmitted, pains in childbirth will be transmitted as per Genesis 3:16. He is absolutely correct that sin is passed on but his interpretation of Genesis 3:16 is way off. The verse reads:
To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”
Matt Slick finishes the article by saying the following:
Notice that part of the curse is pain in childbirth. This is why women suffer during the birth process. So, when we look back to the text of Revelation 12:1-2, we see that the woman clothed with the sun is suffering birth pain. Since the Roman Catholic position is that Mary could not be suffering birth pain (because of her Immaculate Conception and no Original Sin), then these verses cannot be about Mary.
Notice that in Genesis 3:16 God says that He will greatly multiply the pain in childbirth. He didn’t say that he would create pain. Multiply seems to be the main word that English translations use but increase and sharpen are also used. If someone said that they were going to multiply or increase their monthly contributions to their retirement savings plan, that would imply that they are already making contributions but next month would be more. The same is true of the pains in childbirth. They existed before the fall but were not as intense.
The Queen of Heaven from Revelation 12:1-2 is the Blessed Virgin Mary. The pains of childbirth that she experiences are those pre-existent pains before they were multiplied as a result of the fall in Genesis 3:16. Based on a careful reading of the passage, the interpretation of Slick is disqualified.
My old post on Matt Slick and the canon can be found here:
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