Could someone help clarify EOs position on original sin

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The title says it all, I was doing some reading on Eastern orthodoxy and their position on original sin and i seem confused. Could somebody help clarify for me, does Eastern Orthodox Christians believe in the concept of original sin? If not, why?
 
Speaking as a Latin Catholic who has only done some light research, depends and varies. Orthodox typically refer to the sin of our first parents as Ancestral Sin, and what I generally see most objected to is the Augustinian notion of inherited guilt. Now, I said it varies, but one take I saw on the consequences of ancestral sin is that man went from being immortal to mortal, and that being it. Mortality brought on concupisence, because when you’re mortal something like the appetite for hunger can lead you astray. Same for other bodily appetites. What wouldn’t have tempted someone who is immortal, due to their immortality, now can tempt them. I do not say this is the position of all Orthodox, but it is one I’ve seen repeated a few times.

To speak to the Catholic notion or original sin, Catholics stress nowadays that Adam and Eve were created with original holiness by God, and were originally justified. They were also endowed with preternatural gifts such as immortality and the total dominance of their intellectual faculties over bodily/sensitive appetites. This means something like a bodily appetite for hunger could not have compromised their decision making capabilities. When they sinned they forfeited original holiness, their justification, and the other preternatural gifts that they possessed. (It should be noted that these gifts are not natural to man simply by being man, but can be said to be natural in the sense that God intended man to have them).

Perhaps some Orthodox or Eastern Catholics can speak to this much better than I can, though.
 
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It has been my observation that a lot of the differences between the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox are questions of semantics.
 
Eastern Christians have never accepted the Augustinian formulation of Original Sin, with its imputation of individual guilt needing forgiveness. Rather, it’s the fallen state of the world and death.

While the Augustinian formulation is not dogmatic in the western church, it is the reason for the formulation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

This is why the doctrine of the IC is a head-scratcher to the east–not denial of it, but bafflement as to calling it a dogma, as noone else has such guilt, either. To the eastern mind, it is like declaring that “2+2=4” is a dogma . . .

(And by Eastern, I include EC, not just EO).

To see this hashed out at length, check out the archives at the byzcath.org forums (where I learned most of what I know about this)

hawk
 
dochawk said:
Eastern Christians have never accepted the Augustinian formulation of Original Sin, with its imputation of individual guilt needing forgiveness. Rather, it’s the fallen state of the world and death.
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But the Church teaches that fallen man is guilty of OS only in an analogical sense:
CCC 404 "It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act."

CCC 405 "Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants."

The state known as Original Sin describes something lacking in man, not a fault added.
 
fhansen said:
The state known as Original Sin describes something lacking in man, not a fault added.
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Hmm, growing up as a protestant, I never really thought about it that way. Thanks for the thought!
 
fhansen said:
But the Church teaches that fallen man is guilty of OS only in an analogical sense:
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Yet it remains that this is the Roman church, not “the” church, and that this is the RCC catechism, not an EC (or EO) catechism.

The point is that the individual nature of Original Sin, whatever it be, that the West considers is not there in the East.
 
Well, they’re both “the” church. And elements of the truth are found in both teachings as I see it, with the western teaching more fleshed out and clarified, while the eastern position is a bit more terse, for better or worse, and sometimes explained differently by different commentators. Here’s some overlapping as well, as the death man suffered at the Fall is more than physical death alone, much more:

403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”.Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.
 
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I saw that as well. To be honest in reading the article the and the EO position, they are essentially the same, just using different language in the west.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Nicene said:
I saw that as well. To be honest in reading the article the and the EO position, they are essentially the same, just using different language in the west.
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I think that sums up a lot of things between the two by what I’ve read
 
I believe that this issue is a question of semantics where we say the same thing in different ways.
 
No, the RCC finds the EO to be schismatic, which is very different from heretical.
 
Also, RCC never found EO to be heretical, but only schismatical. Anyway - what they were talking about was EC, not EO.
 
At the very least, there is a diversity of opinions in the EO Church over time. It seems until very recently the EOs actually agreed with the Roman position. Their most popular current position–described by some above–is more of a symptom of the neo-Palamite movement, which included a general anti-Latin element, with special disdain for anything associated with St. Augustine. EO objection to the Catholic position is new. Even at the reunion councils of Lyons II or Florence when the Catholic position was well known, it was not objected to, even though much more minor things like purgatorial fire or azymes were.

Here’s an old Catechism that was used for a long time in the EO world:
Question 20.
What is Original Sin ?

Answer.

Original Sin is the Transgression of that Law of God which was given to Adam, the Father of all Men, in these "Words {Gen. ii. 17), Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil thou shall not eat ; for in the Day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die. This original Sin spreadeth over all human Nature ; forasmuch as we were all then contained in Adam. Wherefore by one Adam Sin hath passed into us all. And we are conceived and born with this Blemish, as the Scripture teacheth us {Rom. v. 12), By one Man Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin ; and so Death passed upon all Men, for that all have sinned. This hereditary Sin cannot be rooted out or abolished by any Repentance what-ever, but only by the Grace of God, through the Work of Redemption, wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ, in taking upon him our Flesh and pouring out his precious Blood. And this is done in the Mystery of holy Baptism; and whosoever is not a Partaker thereof, such an one remains unabsolved from his Sin, and continueth in his Guilt, and is liable to the eternal Punishment of the divine Wrath : As it is said {John iii. 5), Verily, verily, I say unto you, that except a Man be born of Water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
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(The approval of this Catechism by the four traditional EO Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem in council states: "this book is in perfect accordance with the dogmas of the Church of Christ and with the sacred Canons; that it contains nothing contrary to the Church: and we declare, assembled in Synod, that every pious and orthodox Christian, who is a member of the Apostolic Church of the East, ought to read this book, and not to reject it.).

But despite modern polemics against original sin, I’ve never met a modern EO person who claimed that infants were not baptized for the remission of sin or that anyone could be saved without grace, even if they had not committed any actual sin. That’s original sin–it’s effects are more than just physical ailments, physical death, and concupiscence. As one knowledgable EO person once told me, it also deprives us of the gifts of the Holy Spirit necessary for salvation and causes the noetic faculties to be ordered away from God and paradise–the grace of baptism is needed to reorder the noetic faculties so that man can be saved and deified.
 
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