Can the Orthodox define what "Uncreated Energy from the Holy Spirit is"?

[Vico]

Marybeloved,

This may be of interest to you by Bl. Pope John Paul II:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_02051995_orientale-lumen_en.html
6. Certain features of the spiritual and theological tradition, common to the various Churches of the East mark their sensitivity to the forms taken by the transmission of the Gospel in Western lands. The Second Vatican Council summarized them as follows: “Everyone knows with what love the Eastern Christians celebrate the sacred liturgy, especially the Eucharistic mystery, source of the Church’s life and pledge of future glory. In this mystery the faithful, united with their bishops, have access to God the Father through the Son, the Word made flesh who suffered and was glorified, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And so, made ‘sharers of the divine nature’ (2 * Pt* 1:4) they enter into communion with the most holy Trinity.”(11)
These features describe the Eastern outlook of the Christian. His or her goal is participation in the divine nature through communion with the mystery of the Holy Trinity. In this view the Father’s “monarchy” is outlined as well as the concept of salvation according to the divine plan, as it is presented by Eastern theology after Saint Irenaeus of Lyons and which spread among the Cappadocian Fathers.(12)

So our Blessed Mother of God participates in the divine nature through the Holy Spirit (per the Immaculate Conception, this is from her conception).

 

[Cavaradossi]

I am not an expert on this parsing of essence and energy. However, we do very much proclaim that the Theotokos was filled with and gave birth to divine essence. No?

Sort of, but we have to be careful to assert that she gave birth to a person (hypostasis) who was divine, rather than just the divine nature. Otherwise we fall into Nestorianism.

 

[Cavaradossi]

These two operations you present, the begetting of the Son and creation are exactly what I said above to Ryan Black. Here I reproduce it:

You said Yes, but the operation of the divine will/wisdom in regards to the Divinity is eternal- The begetting of the Son is Forever and always.

The operation of the divine will in creation cannot be said to be eternal, can it? Were there always creatures from eternity? Was creation always there? So how can the temporal creative act be God? This act of God is temporal- it’s created and cannot be said to be itself God because God has no beginning or end- and what results is not God. Not so with the two processions (of the Son and the Holy Spirit). In regards to sanctifying Grace, we believe that God’s act of gracing us is created (not God) but his Grace itself in us is God- and it’s not some other “thing” other than his essence. For us, we don’t need to have distinctions in God’s being to understand our oneness with him without being him- None of us can possess the divine being, because none of us is a divine person. The divine being can be communicated to our creaturely persons and created beings according to our limits which is infinitely small.

To us, the will that gives rise to a divine person is the same one (essence) that gives rise to creation, but the acts of this will are not. One is an eternal act of the One will in the Divine being, another a temporal act of the One will outside God- creation.

But I think that St. Athanasius’ argument goes further. His argument seems to be that the begetting of the Son is not an act of will at all. In Against the Arians, he makes this exact argument:
66. Since then the Son is by nature and not by will, is He without the pleasure of the Father and not with the Father’s will? No, verily; but the Son is with the pleasure of the Father, and, as He says Himself, ‘The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things.’ For as not ‘from will’ did He begin to be good, nor yet is good without will and pleasure (for what He is, that also is His pleasure), so also that the Son should be, though it came not ‘from will,’ yet it is not without His pleasure or against His purpose. For as His own Subsistence is by His pleasure, so also the Son, being proper to His Essence, is not without His pleasure. Be then the Son the object of the Father’s pleasure and love; and thus let every one religiously account of the pleasure and the not-unwillingness of God. For by that good pleasure wherewith the Son is the object of the Father’s pleasure, is the Father the object of the Son’s love, pleasure, and honour; and one is the good pleasure which is from Father in Son, so that here too we may contemplate the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son. Let no one then, with Valentinus, introduce a precedent will; nor let any one, by this pretence of ‘counsel,’ intrude between the Only Father and the Only Word; for it were madness to place will and consideration between them. For it is one thing to say, ‘Of will He came to be,’ and another, that the Father has love and good pleasure towards His Son who is His own by nature. For to say, ‘Of will He came to be,’ in the first place implies that once He was not; and next it implies an inclination two ways, as has been said, so that one might suppose that the Father could even not will the Son. But to say of the Son, ‘He might not have been,’ is an irreligious presumption reaching even to the Essence of the Father, as if what is His own might not have been. For it is the same as saying, ‘The Father might not have been good.’ And as the Father is always good by nature, so He is always generative by nature; and to say, ‘The Father’s good pleasure is the Son,’ and ‘The Word’s good pleasure is the Father,’ implies, not a precedent will, but genuineness of nature, and propriety and likeness of Essence. For as in the case of the radiance and light one might say, that there is no will preceding radiance in the light, but it is its natural offspring, at the pleasure of the light which begat it, not by will and consideration, but in nature and truth, so also in the instance of the Father and the Son, one might rightly say, that the Father has love and good pleasure towards the Son, and the Son has love and good pleasure towards the Father.
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.iv.viii.html

He says that the Son is begotten by nature in the same way that the Father is good by nature. To recast this argument by St. Athanasius in St. Gregory Palamas’ terminology, there must be a difference between how the Son and Holy Spirit have communion with the Father (essentially), and how we have communion with the Father (energetically) or else we are uncreated and the Son and the Holy Spirit are created. And yet we cannot say that the energies which we interact with are created. St. Gregory Palamas draws on St. Maximos the Confessor, who says this about ‘works (energies) without beginning’:

All immortal things and immortality itself, all living things and life itself, all holy things and holiness itself, all good things and goodness itself, all blessings and blessedness itself, all beings and being itself are manifestly works of God. Some began to be in time, for they have not always existed. Others did not begin to be in time, for goodness, blessedness, holiness and immortality have always existed

I hope maybe this at least shows where the Eastern Christians are coming from, when they say that there is a real distinction between essence and energies.

 

[milidrag]

…God’s uncreated energy is not the same as God’s essence, because we can indeed both define and experience God’s energy, but we can neither define nor experience God’s essence, which, according to the Byzantine tradition, eternally remains transcendent and incomprehensible.
…

This is a fairly good response that cuts into the core of the problem (as defined by the title of the thread).

I’d emphasize that the distinction is not primarily an intellectual one. It’s root is primarily in experience, having the different origin from intellectual, logic approach.

God’s energies are what is experienced by some, since God’s essence can’t be experienced.

 

[RyanBlack]

I suppose the true difference is that with us, God’s love is his essence- it’s not a manifestation or something other than the divine essence.

No, God’s love is not his essence. God is indeed love, but God is more than love. Therefore, God’s love is not his essence, neither is spirit, nor grace, nor goodness, nor holiness, nor any other divine attribute we can name, all of which are indeed eternal and divine, but none of which defines God’s essence, for God is beyond the capacity of creatures to define. We do not know what God’s essence is, because God’s essence is utterly transcendent, incomprehensible, and impenetrable.

 

[milidrag]

dvdjs:

I am not an expert on this parsing of essence and energy. However, we do very much proclaim that the Theotokos was filled with and gave birth to divine essence. No?

Sort of, but we have to be careful to assert that she gave birth to a person (hypostasis) who was divine, rather than just the divine nature. Otherwise we fall into Nestorianism.

I’d never say that Theotokos gave birth to essence, or substance, of anything. She gave birth to God-man, a person, a hypostasis.

 

[RyanBlack]

This is the other explanation I have difficulty following:

-The energies and essence are both fully God.
-We partake of God- but of his energies and not his essence.
-Partaking of his essence means we become him- pantheism.
-Partaking of his energies means we do not become him…
Yet BOTH the essence and energies are fully God Why does one have the effect of becoming God and another does not? Unless the latter (energies) is not actually God like the essence?

For me, this reasoning makes no sense unless we say that the energies are not actually Divine or fully God Why is the energy “partakable” but not the essence? Aren’t they both God? If partaking of God’s essence makes us God, why not partaking of his energies?- Are they not divine energies? Unless we say these energies are actually NOT God so that the idea of partaking of them has no danger of making us God (pantheism), what distinguishes them from essence? The only other way this works is if we divide the Divine nature into two- one that we can possess and another we can’t. If we insist it’s only act/operation, then are we saying that God communicates nothing to us- not his divine life?

The partaking of the divine energies does indeed divinize us, or make us “gods,” but not on the level of essence, otherwise, no there is no distinction between God and creatures. To quote St. Maximos the Confessor, we become by grace what God is by nature."

 

[RyanBlack]

But I think that St. Athanasius’ argument goes further. His argument seems to be that the begetting of the Son is not an act of will at all. In Against the Arians, he makes this exact argument:
66. Since then the Son is by nature and not by will, is He without the pleasure of the Father and not with the Father’s will? No, verily; but the Son is with the pleasure of the Father, and, as He says Himself, ‘The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things.’ For as not ‘from will’ did He begin to be good, nor yet is good without will and pleasure (for what He is, that also is His pleasure), so also that the Son should be, though it came not ‘from will,’ yet it is not without His pleasure or against His purpose. For as His own Subsistence is by His pleasure, so also the Son, being proper to His Essence, is not without His pleasure. Be then the Son the object of the Father’s pleasure and love; and thus let every one religiously account of the pleasure and the not-unwillingness of God. For by that good pleasure wherewith the Son is the object of the Father’s pleasure, is the Father the object of the Son’s love, pleasure, and honour; and one is the good pleasure which is from Father in Son, so that here too we may contemplate the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son. Let no one then, with Valentinus, introduce a precedent will; nor let any one, by this pretence of ‘counsel,’ intrude between the Only Father and the Only Word; for it were madness to place will and consideration between them. For it is one thing to say, ‘Of will He came to be,’ and another, that the Father has love and good pleasure towards His Son who is His own by nature. For to say, ‘Of will He came to be,’ in the first place implies that once He was not; and next it implies an inclination two ways, as has been said, so that one might suppose that the Father could even not will the Son. But to say of the Son, ‘He might not have been,’ is an irreligious presumption reaching even to the Essence of the Father, as if what is His own might not have been. For it is the same as saying, ‘The Father might not have been good.’ And as the Father is always good by nature, so He is always generative by nature; and to say, ‘The Father’s good pleasure is the Son,’ and ‘The Word’s good pleasure is the Father,’ implies, not a precedent will, but genuineness of nature, and propriety and likeness of Essence. For as in the case of the radiance and light one might say, that there is no will preceding radiance in the light, but it is its natural offspring, at the pleasure of the light which begat it, not by will and consideration, but in nature and truth, so also in the instance of the Father and the Son, one might rightly say, that the Father has love and good pleasure towards the Son, and the Son has love and good pleasure towards the Father.
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.iv.viii.html

He says that the Son is begotten by nature in the same way that the Father is good by nature. To recast this argument by St. Athanasius in St. Gregory Palamas’ terminology, there must be a difference between how the Son and Holy Spirit have communion with the Father (essentially), and how we have communion with the Father (energetically) or else we are uncreated and the Son and the Holy Spirit are created. And yet we cannot say that the energies which we interact with are created. St. Gregory Palamas draws on St. Maximos the Confessor, who says this about ‘works (energies) without beginning’:

All immortal things and immortality itself, all living things and life itself, all holy things and holiness itself, all good things and goodness itself, all blessings and blessedness itself, all beings and being itself are manifestly works of God. Some began to be in time, for they have not always existed. Others did not begin to be in time, for goodness, blessedness, holiness and immortality have always existed

I hope maybe this at least shows where the Eastern Christians are coming from, when they say that there is a real distinction between essence and energies.

Exactly. The begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit are not acts of the divine will. They are eternal acts of the divine nature.

 

[RyanBlack]

These two operations you present, the begetting of the Son and creation are exactly what I said above to Ryan Black. Here I reproduce it:

You said Yes, but the operation of the divine will/wisdom in regards to the Divinity is eternal- The begetting of the Son is Forever and always.

The operation of the divine will in creation cannot be said to be eternal, can it? Were there always creatures from eternity? Was creation always there? So how can the temporal creative act be God? This act of God is temporal- it’s created and cannot be said to be itself God because God has no beginning or end- and what results is not God. Not so with the two processions (of the Son and the Holy Spirit). In regards to sanctifying Grace, we believe that God’s act of gracing us is created (not God) but his Grace itself in us is God- and it’s not some other “thing” other than his essence. For us, we don’t need to have distinctions in God’s being to understand our oneness with him without being him- None of us can possess the divine being, because none of us is a divine person. The divine being can be communicated to our creaturely persons and created beings according to our limits which is infinitely small.

To us, the will that gives rise to a divine person is the same one (essence) that gives rise to creation, but the acts of this will are not. One is an eternal act of the One will in the Divine being, another a temporal act of the One will outside God- creation.

Who is saying that the operation of the divine will in creation is eternal? Who is saying that the act of creation is one of the uncreated energies? Anyone who asserts this has a deficient understanding of the essence/energies teaching. God’s act of creation is consistent with his nature (as are all of his acts, for he cannot act in a manner inconsistent with his nature), but it is not the same as his nature.

 

[dvdjs]

Sort of, but we have to be careful to assert that she gave birth to a person (hypostasis) who was divine, rather than just the divine nature. Otherwise we fall into Nestorianism.

The humanity of Christ is not part of the topic, but of course it is not excluded in what has been written in the thread. On the other hand, some of what has been written clearly suggests that the Theotokos did not - and perhaps could cot - receive the divine essence. I think that there is a major problem with that

 

[Cavaradossi]

The humanity of Christ is not part of the topic, but of course it is not excluded in what has been written in the thread. On the other hand, some of what has been written clearly suggests that the Theotokos did not - and perhaps could cot - receive the divine essence. I think that there is a major problem with that

I think according to Cappadocian theology, she couldn’t have done so. Receiving the divine essence would have made her divine through some sort of hypostatic union. Her essence remained very much human, but she was permeated with the deifying grace of God (a super-natural or super-essential energy of God), which is what we mean when we speak of theosis.

Essence in this context means a trait (I’m sorry to all of the Thomists out there, I know this definition will look wrong), which defines the mode of being for a particular hypostasis (person). Thus Mary (a hypostasis) is human (her nature and essence are human). She gave birth to Jesus, who is the very same hypostasis as God the Son (they are the same person), who is both human and divine (in two natures, human and divine), and by virtue of giving birth to a person who is divine, she is called Theotokos. We can’t really say that she gave birth to the divine essence or a human essence (people, not essences, are born), but rather to one person (the Word of God), who is both divine in nature and human in nature.

 

[RyanBlack]

The humanity of Christ is not part of the topic, but of course it is not excluded in what has been written in the thread. On the other hand, some of what has been written clearly suggests that the Theotokos did not - and perhaps could cot - receive the divine essence. I think that there is a major problem with that

I think to state that the Theotokos could or did receive the divine essence is incorrect. The Theotokos can no more receive the divine essence than one of us can. When our Lord was in her womb, the divine essence was present within her body-I believe to state othewise denies the hypostatic union. However, I do not see how we can say that she received the divine essence in the sense of any sort of personal union with the divine essence, because the divine essence entirely transcends creation.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Tell ya, Ryan has me on another focus of thought

I always was more inclined to think of the lines of Supreme Divine, and infinitely perfect Spirit. And Spirit in the sense of without body in our understanding, but has understanding and free-will, who possesses all perfections without measure or number.

When we say what or which are the princible perfections of God? Then of course again we become reduced to mankinds knowledge and begin the discourse of Eternal, everywhere-present, almighty, all-knowing, all-wise, Holy, just, good, merciful, true, faithful, unchangable etc etc. When I say all-wise I mean that God knows how to deal with everything in the best way. So each definition in our understanding still breaks down to yet still being defined. Thus is the case for human comprehension. Or when I say Holy. I mean further that God loves and wills only what is good, and rejects what is evil, becuase He is Love and Good. Or what is good about Gods love? All that is according to His most Holy will.

However from here we can also see that it does matter to God that man is good or bad. for God is Holy and just.

Perhaps I am wrong, however If I’m following Ryans thinking we can see where he is at with essence/energies? So yes when its stated “we become by grace what God is by nature” here to we can see this process in others and the self as you ascend the spiritual path to the Lord in and by Grace.

To me its just a process of looking past the words, and not being confined by them in relation to God. However in the aspect of creating a difference in the trinity, I have to contemplate, I don’t see any major difference in Ryans thinking or more to the point St. Gregory Palamas

However it could be me, as noted I tend to view spiritual matters more openly.

 

[Vico]

Forgive my ignorance of the term uncreated energies of the Holy Spirit. You are introducing uncreated grace as describing this uncreated energy is this correct?

The Catholic Church reveals how God’s grace flows via the sacraments.

Can you put in sentence describing how this "uncreated energy ( works) from the Holy Spirit. When do you see this uncreated energy? is it in the sacraments, or liturgy?

I think I missed this post. In the sacraments, yes.

From Post #7 in this thread, Modern Catholic Dictionary (Fr. John Hardon, S.J.)

UNCREATED GRACE

God himself, insofar as in his love has predetermined gifts of grace. Tthere are three forms of uncreated grace: the hypostatic union, the divine indwelling, and the beatific vision.

In the first of these, God has communicated himself in the Incarnation of Christ’s humanity (the grace of union) so intimately that Jesus of Nazareth is a divine person.

In the second and third communications, the souls of the justified on earth and of the glorified in heaven are elevated to a share in God’s own life.

All three are created graces, considered as acts, since they all had a beginning in time. *But the gift that is conferred on a creature in these acts is uncreated.

 

[dvdjs]

I think to state that the Theotokos could or did receive the divine essence is incorrect. The Theotokos can no more receive the divine essence than one of us can. When our Lord was in her womb, the divine essence was present within her body-I believe to state othewise denies the hypostatic union. However, I do not see how we can say that she received the divine essence in the sense of any sort of personal union with the divine essence, because the divine essence entirely transcends creation.

You are correct about the problem of denying the hypostatic union. I use the word “receive” because that is the word we use in the eighth ode of Matins for Annunciation, etc.: Listen O pure virgin. Let Gabriel tell you the news… : Prepare to ** receive** God. Your suggestion that this reception is not any sort of personal union sounds Nestorian to my ears.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Agree’d the theology is now becoming seperated from the ECFs teachings.

Their can be no seperation of the Hypostatic Union. That is ECFs, Ecumenical Council. Tradition both Oral and Written in the Divine/Human Nature of Jesus Christ thus the Incarnation. We are now talking the 4th council. You are at the 7th. What we have is complete abandonment of even the 4th now, as is in many case’s in the USA and elsewhere today. In other words complete abandonment of basic Christian teachings. Which now adhere to mans personal finite world he has found comfortability in and will not let go of, so he will re-interpret Gods Kingdom to fit into his? . Yes I know we all would like to remain in that bubble, but that is not Gods Kingdom, that is your Kingdom.

However lets get back to Uncreated Energy or Energy and put God off to the side for a moment. What are you as a human being, literally, scientifically? Basically you are a break down of Matter, Water and Energy keeping this simple. The E=Energy, cannot be destroyed, simple fact of physics/electrical. It can only be displaced. So in other words somewhere in the process of the matter decaying through physics, the water evaporating, the Energy through metaphysics has to go “somewhere”.

We all share in Gods Divinity through the Heavenly Court, Communion of Saints. No you don’t become God, and no the Virgin Mother didn’t become God. You are made perfect in Gods Image. God doesn’t have your physical body of matter/water=Flesh. He does have that Energy, abundantly and Divinely. So then what part of you is made perfect in Gods image? See here’s where men and women spend to much time in the mirror reducing themselves to vanity. Thats not from God. Through this understanding we can also begin to see God in all others, not from a preconceived, conditioned outword appearence of what man in any one period considers beauty, but from what is of God and Perfectly created in His image throughout mankind. Then to we begin to see the value of all the castaways, sick, old, unborn but a living soul, handicapped, deformed etc. No different than what Paul is talking about in Corinthians, the body through physics is in a perpetual state of decay, thus its a constant process of descending in order to ascend. Here we begin to understanding suffering, Thus we also see that exact process with God reduced Himself decsends to mankind, for once in only in History looking “down” at God is Mary with Jesus in Her arms. In all eternity he choose “one” person to trust with His life as fully human/divine in vunerability, and that was Mary. Oh no doubt he chose the Holy family and they were guided by Angels etc.

In most of our cultures we can’t comprehend what Jesus and Mary immediately knew in relation to Jewish Tradition. Thus King David and his queen Bathsheba, who was Jesus queen? We see glimpse’s of this in the Wedding of Cana.

The this aspect this is negected today by cultural misunderstanding. In the OT you’ll see Jesus disciples, and the women are right their mentioned my name, as they are through early Christianity. The men and women became the first 300-years of the Martyred Church. But what you don’t hear is who Peters sister was, or Pauls sister, or few other women in the OT but Christs disciples. This is again do to Jewish tradition where for a very long time women were regarded as a mere possession no different than the servant, ox, donkey, etc. just as in Islam today, and just as the civil world has completely been flipped upside down in regards to marriage, family. In Genesis men=women. Jesus relates to this when he’s questioned in scripture about marriage. And He explains what happened in Mose’s period. Who did Jesus refuse to help or disregard? Look at the woman at the well. What did he have in common with her but a glass of water? Or the woman being about to be stoned. And on and on.

Did Mary not know all this? Where did She call the Jews murderers? Even as Jesus died on the Cross for Love of man and His people which never stopped, as completely distraut as Mary was in sorrow and suffering, She held no ill will for those who “did not know better”

When we say Grace as mention above, Mary was Full of Grace “before” the Holy Spirit came upon Her. Hail Mary Blessed are though. This was the foregone conclusion already in Heaven. Many Virtues are given to Mary through Her Faith by Grace. This is the ascent/descent process, which God placed specfic individuals inbetween Himself and mankind. Till finally God placed Himself inbetween, is not Mary inbetween now? However, with Mary was the refusal to follow by Lucifer [a human] which caused the war in Heaven, thus Michael, and then we see the acceptence of Gods will by the Heavenly Court [Revelation] through Gabriel at the Annunciation. While we can conclude Mary was not divine, we can also see clearly how God and those who follow Gods will came to view Her. As the Angel Gabriels Annunciation is most telling as was Lucifers pride.

Question is…what happened to mankind in Christianity in regards to women and Tradition?

In God-Speed time, the Church embraced men + Women of all Nations. The number has never ceased to grow. Each member has been passed the ball of Tradition. each is given through God in free-will the opportunity to literally hold it in Love, then to make his or her impression on it, then pass it on. That ball we call tradition has been passed around the world, and back and forth, Christian West to East. Its moved foward across National, Racial, Ethnic, Cultural and Social barriers. Another question, what will you do with the ball of Tradition?

 

[Cavaradossi]

You are correct about the problem of denying the hypostatic union. I use the word “receive” because that is the word we use in the eighth ode of Matins for Annunciation, etc.: Listen O pure virgin. Let Gabriel tell you the news… : Prepare to ** receive** God. Your suggestion that this reception is not any sort of personal union sounds Nestorian to my ears.

Receive God, not divinity. She received a person of the trinity within her womb, but to say that she received the divine nature as one of her properties or came to know what the divine nature ‘is’ (to be more precise, the divine nature is beyond being or existing) goes beyond the teachings of the Eastern Fathers, who taught that the divine nature is unknowable (think Pseudo-Dionysus) to created beings. Of course that doesn’t mean she’s not special among the saints (our prayers like axion estin say she is), just that there still a difference between the three divine persons and all of creation, no matter how highly she is to be honored for bringing our savior into this world.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Receive God, not divinity.

Right, in fact its seeing it in reverse. Its the Son of God in the infant Jesus who receives the Humanity which becomes the inseperable dual nature through the Natural Birth process. Both other ways of looking at Jesus were fought by the early church.

I’m not even sure at this point the Virgin Mother received anything She didn’t already have as far as Grace. I believe it was the completion of the Blessing She was already being prepared for up to that point and accomplishing up to this point. IMHO once that responsibility came, another set of responsibilities rested upon Her also.

Now after Jesus commits Himself to the Cross. St Mary completes Her course in this physical world, then I could see a different aspect.

If we invert and look at Eve, Eve is Blessed also with the Garden, etc. As Eve acts according to Her own free-will after that Blessing, God to acts according to His. Course with Eve its to the negative sense of Justice.

 

[RyanBlack]

You are correct about the problem of denying the hypostatic union. I use the word “receive” because that is the word we use in the eighth ode of Matins for Annunciation, etc.: Listen O pure virgin. Let Gabriel tell you the news… : Prepare to ** receive** God. Your suggestion that this reception is not any sort of personal union sounds Nestorian to my ears.

No, it’s not Nestorian whatsoever. The personal union, or the hypostatic union, refers to the personal union of divinity and humanity in the God-man, Jesus Christ. The Theotokos physicall recieved God in her womb, but she did not undergo a personal union with the divine essence.

 

[couponfit]

The Orthodoxy does not accept the idea that the Mother of God was born with the (inherited) guilt of Adam; no one is. She did, however, inherit the mortality which comes to all on account of Adam’s Fall.
Therefore, there is no need to do what Latin theologians have done. There is no reason to invent a theory to support the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. There is no need to teach that, on account of “the merits of Christ”. The Holy Spirit was able to prevent her from inheriting the guilt of Adam. In fact, she was born like every other human being. The Holy Spirit prepared the Virgin Mary for her role as the Mother of God. She was filled with the Uncreated Energy of the Holy Spirit of God in order that she might be a worthy vessel for the birth of Christ.

Eastern catholics do not deny the western teaching and vice versa. The EC’s do not teach she was born with original sin. It’s not explicitly taught either way. The absence of explicit belief is not the same as repudiation. It’s as if I ask you if you can read the words on a sign from 100 feet away, and you say yes, but another says no. Saying no does not indicate the person deny’s the words are there, nor does it indicate the person disagrees with the other who can see the words. Even within a small area, like a county not all Church’s celebrate the same feast days for all saints but the absence of a feast for a saint at one catholic church does not indicate repudiation of that saint. The absence of the feast of the immaculate conception is not repudiation of the belief, nor is the presence of the feast of the conception of St Anne. Just like the absence of the feast of St Nicholas or St Patrick or St Francis de Assisi or St John Damascus is indication of repudiation.

EC’s rather see that Mary is redeemed by Christ. Both EC and WC agree that both are right. The RC does not deny Mary is redeemed by Christ. Both explanations are explicit and correct. The way I see it is like looking at a building from the east and the west, and when describing it, each has a tendency of explaining the same building form opposite perspective.

Imagine that when a person is born either during or after conception but before birth they come upon a pit if you would, fall in, and then are saved by Christ. In Mary’s case she was redeemed, so we can picture Mary as having been saved by Christ before she fell into the pit. Yes she needed saving, but no she never fell into original sin.

I should point out that neither the eastern or western canons say otherwise. Neither canon sets Mary is immaculate or redeemed per se. She is regarded to receive filial veneration, as the most Blessed Ever Virgin Mother of God (Theotokos). The only actual doctrine we have on Mary as immaculate, or at least first, was in a Papal Bull in 1854.