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Chaldean_Rite
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This sounds very *unorthodox *to me.
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
I think your use of words like “deformed” etc. is not becoming of someone as well versed in theology as yourself!There’s no “dancing around”. There’s just long held (and dare I say, cherished) assumptions in the East about what the West believes and teaches.Yes she was! She never experienced the privation/absence of grace in her soul, which the latins call “stain”- She was most definitely exempt from it.
We in the West do not hold that St. John the Baptist was sanctified at conception- your post is the first I’ve ever seen/heard of it. We hold that he did suffer the privation-aka stain, until the Visitation of Our Lady with Christ in her womb, when St. John was sanctified while still in his mother’s womb.
This is precisely the exemption we speak of. Mary never at any moment tasted the privation/lack of sanctifying Grace. You’re equating one of the consequences of the original sin with the sin itself. Besides- Our Savior died and he most certainly had no original sin, so this point doesn’t have any real weight to it.
Only to those Eastern ears that have/cling to a deformed understanding of the doctrine as taught in the West.
Peace!
Be that as it may, our Saviour did die, of course, but He did not have to. Your argument here has no relevance in this respect.
Terms like “exemption” and “stain of Original Sin” are simply confusing. How is a lack of something a “stain?” It is not the most obvious example of what a “stain” consists of.
And also, at what point in the West did it become apparent that there was a possibility that the Mother of Christ our God could have lacked any Grace at any time - therefore incurring some sort of “stain?” And why did this never occur in Eastern theology?
Perhaps (and I believe it is) this is all a matter of semantics. Both East and West affirm the All-Holiness of the Mother of God. The idea that Easterns need the IC dogma to somehow add something to their understanding of the Person of the Most Holy Virgin Mary as all holy and as needing to conform to the De Fide requirements of (Latin) Catholicism - well, we don’t need to go into that again.
However, the one remaining point of difference is something you haven’t addressed (and don’t really need to) regarding the issue of the death of the Mother of God in relation to Original Sin.
You accuse me of confusing a consequence of Original Sin with the sin itself. That is simply not what I said.
The argument I made is that the fact that the Mother of God did die, as our liturgy asserts clearly, means that she had Original Sin. The East asserts BOTH that she had Original Sin (which the East only understands in terms of its effects) but that God had poured such a superabundance of grace onto her that those effects were mitigated in her i.e. that she felt no pain in giving birth to Christ and that her death was nothing more than a light, sweep sleep.
If this is what the Latin Church teaches, although referring to the effects of Original Sin as such, then there is no problem. I then don’t understand your apparent anger and dismay at Eastern theology and/or those comiing at this issue from that perspective.
Alex
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
The only point of difference between East and West has to do with the issue of the death of the Most Holy Virgin Mary as an effect of Original Sin. To say that she was preserved free of Original Sin would mean that she would not have died.
For the East, Mary contracted Original Sin according to the body because she did die. According to her soul, of course, she was replete with the highest level of Grace from her Conception and this grace mitigated the effects of Original Sin in her.
For the East, then, the existence of the effect of Original Sin in terms of death means that Mary was not exempt from Original Sin. At no time does any of this imply that Mary had a lack of any Grace at any point in her life. The East would therefore never present the matter in terms of the language of the Latin Catholic Church in this regard. On the other hand, the East never felt the need to dogmatically define what its “lex orandi-lex credendi” tradition has always affirmed - that Mary was Ever-Immaculate and All-Holy. The West needed to define it because it allowed for the view that Mary could have been conceived with a lack of sanctifying Grace (i.e. “stain”) and Western saints such as St Thomas Aquinas, of course, could legitimately (prior to the papal definition) affirm that.
There never was, nor ever will be, a need for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the East. It is Western Mariology that has no relevance for Eastern Theotokology.
Alex
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Ghosty
Guest
Remember: stain is not the term used in Latin. The proper term is macula, hence immaculate, and that means a darkening or blemish, and doesn’t imply something added. The macula of sin is the absence of Divine Light in the soul in Latin theology, and that is how it’s expressed in every major Latin theological work.
In the East we also believe that the Divine Light/Life is absent on account of the sin of Adam and Eve, and is restored at Baptism. This means we absolutely believe in the “stain of Original Sin”, and if Mary was conceived with the Light of God in her soul, the she was Immaculately conceived by definition.
Peace and God bless!
In the East we also believe that the Divine Light/Life is absent on account of the sin of Adam and Eve, and is restored at Baptism. This means we absolutely believe in the “stain of Original Sin”, and if Mary was conceived with the Light of God in her soul, the she was Immaculately conceived by definition.
Peace and God bless!
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Stain:
- a discoloration (me: darkening?) produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
- a natural spot or patch of color different from that of the basic color, as on the body of an animal.
- a cause of reproach; stigma; blemish: a stain on one’s reputation.
- coloration produced by a dye that penetrates a substance, as wood.
- a dye made into a solution for coloring woods, textiles, etc.
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5Loaves
Guest
Sidebar: In case anyone is local to Oakland, CA and is interested, there will be a showing of the DVD Blessed Duns Scotus – Defender of the Immaculate Conception on December 9th, at 7:30 p.m., at St. Margaret Mary Church, Oakland. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Potluck Refreshments.
The friend who sent me the flier for this today wrote: “[T]his film gives some background into the origins of the feast. It also is a fairly accurate depiction of what a theological dispute was like in an ordinary monastery. Modern discourse could learn a lot!”
The friend who sent me the flier for this today wrote: “[T]his film gives some background into the origins of the feast. It also is a fairly accurate depiction of what a theological dispute was like in an ordinary monastery. Modern discourse could learn a lot!”
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Ghosty
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That’s the definition of stain, not macula. The proper theological term is macula, not stain, but in English stain is often used.
Peace and God bless!
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James924
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Having just been stationed in the Monterey bay area a couple weeks ago and already planning to visit some Eastern Divine Liturgies in the San Fran bay area, I might have to stop by for this…
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James924
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Not to poke fun at you or anything, constantineTG, but I remember having a debate with an atheist in my unit once who tried to prove to me that infallibility meant that the pope could run around raping and pillaging and not incur sin… he did this by looking up the word “infallibility” in an english dictionary online. I promtly reminded him that the doctrines of my church are written and defined in and in accordance with the latin language, that that church and its use of latin was 2,000 years old and that the english language didn’t exist until about 700 to 1000 years ago (depending on what you consider englich). In other words, rarely does a search in an online english dictionary rightfully carry any weight in debates about Catholic doctrine.
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ConstantineTG
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My point was you said “macula” is not stain, but a blemish. But in english, a stain is a blemish. Unless there’s a different meaning in Latin…
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ConstantineTG
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Then please do enlighten me what the difference is between “stain” and “blemish”
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Cavaradossi
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Sp then you think the sacraments essentially are rituals that cause God to dispense His grace rather than acts which transform the believer? The former sounds very unorthodox to me. I don’t think that frequently participating in the sacraments is any sort of guarantee that one has a great relationship with God. One could commune every day and still be hell bound for all we know.
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Chaldean_Rite
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So when Jesus said “do this in memory of me” - it basically amounts to nothing since the person who does not do it has the same advantage / benefit of whatever He was talking about?
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Cavaradossi
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That’s not quite what I was getting at. In this hypothetical scenario, the unbaptized one, although his freewill is damaged by the consequences of the fall, might still have a more intimate communion with God than the baptized one, because the one who is baptized is still able to choose to reject God. Surely baptism and the other sacraments (above all the Eucharist) effect an ontological change in the believer, a consequence of which is that he should be free of concupiscence, which confers an advantage upon the him, but it is no guarantee that the baptized one will choose communion with God, even though his freedom to make such a choice is no longer impeded by the fall. Because of that, we really have no way of knowing in whom God’s presence is more manifest.
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Ghosty
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Stain can mean a natural blemish but it’s most obvious implication in English is of something added in order to discolor it. That is the implication you and others have held to in discussing Latin theology, but that implication is not primary in the term macula, and certainly isn’t present in the doctrine of the “stain of Original Sin”.
My point was you said “macula” is not stain, but a blemish. But in english, a stain is a blemish. Unless there’s a different meaning in Latin…
You yourself stated, in the other thread IIRC, that you thought the “stain of Original Sin” is something added to human nature, and used that as a basis for denying that we Easterns believe in Original Sin. I’m merely pointing out that this misunderstanding may possibly come from the translation of macula.
Alexander Roman:
This was addressed earlier in the thread. We can’t say that death automatically means the presence of Original Sin, because Christ Himself died. The fact that He need not have has no bearing on the fact that His death shows that human nature can die with or without Original Sin. This avenue of attack on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception rebounds upon Christ, and really shouldn’t be used, IMO. I say this knowing full well that you believe in the Immaculate Conception and aren’t attacking it, and have shown its Eastern roots many times on this forum.
Mary certainly died, but can we say with certainty that her death was different from Christ’s? The only difference we can speak of is that she didn’t rise of her own power, but this isn’t owing to Original Sin but rather to the fact that Christ is God and Mary is not. We Easterns do say that her death was very different from everyone else, and this speaks to the validity of the Immaculate Conception, IMO. If she bore the effects of Original Sin in her body she did so in the same manner as Christ, and the same manner that we all do after Baptism, at least insofar as death is concerned.
As a side note, this is why I’m uncomfortable with the emphasis on physical death as the chief result of Original Sin, physical death leading to the propensity for personal sin and other effects we associate with Original Sin in the Byzantine tradition. We know that Christ died, and we know that Baptism and the Sacraments which help reunite us with God and undo the errors of Adam and Eve do not remove mortality, and I can’t square this with the notion that death is the primary effect of Adam and Eve’s actions; if it were, then death should be fully “put away” by Christ, rather than just our distance from God. That’s another topic all together, however!
Peace and God bless!
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ConstantineTG
Guest
That understanding came from 14 years of Catholic School (from elementary to bachelor’s degree) where we are taught that the stain of original sin is washed away by baptism. As Alex have pointed out, this is how it was taught in the past.
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Vico
Guest
Certainly when there is no dogmatic definition, many views may be held, which implies that the matters are not those defining the faith.Dear Friend,
Which “Easterns” insist that they don’t believe in Original Sin? You’ve opened up a whole new area of theological research that I didn’t know existed!
We “Easterns” do have problems understanding what Latin Catholic theology really means by “inherited guilt” (how could we inherit the personal guilt of Adam’s sin of disobedience? How is that possible?). This, to us, seems to be a carry-over from aspects of St Augustine’s theology and is entirely foreign to the school of the Cappadocian Fathers.
But for us “Easterns,” Original Sin is the death that we inherit as a consequence of Adam’s sin of disobedience and the damaged (but not completely) human nature where it is darkened and in a state of rebellion against God via concupiscence.
The Christian East has ALWAYS believed and affirmed and liturgically celebrated the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God as “All-Immaculate” and “All-Holy” and it was the East that began liturgically celebrating the feast of the Conception of Mary in the womb of St Anne - which means the East celebrated Mary as a Saint at the moment of her Conception.
Only in the Roman Catholic West was the opinion allowed that Mary was born with the inherited guilt of Original Sin until the Pope declared the dogma of the IC in the 19th century.
So without ever defining it dogmatically, the East has always glorified Mary as without ANY sin whatever because God sanctified her and poured out His Grace upon her from her Conception.
In addition, we also celebrate the Conception of St John the Baptist which also means that he was sanctified at his Conception in view of the great role he would play in salvation history - again without dogmatic definition.
Locally, we have the feast of the Nativity of St Nicholas which too suggests he was sanctified before he was born. We celebrate the dormition of St John the Evangelist/theologian into heaven, body and soul which likewise suggests a tremendous level of Grace for that great Saint of God.
And all this without dogmatic definition but based on the “lex orandi - lex credendi” principle.
The East never had to suffer any controversies about human nature and Grace as occurred in the West, especially with respect to Protestantism.
In fact, the Immaculate Conception doctrine would never have had to have been defined if the West had this same Eastern theological outlook.
The idea of “exemptions” is simply foreign to the East.
Alex
There was a theological battle for hundeds of years in the Catholic Church between the Franciscans (pro) and the Dominicans (had to side with Aquinas, con) with opposing views of the conception of the Virgin Mary. Finally the Magisterium stopped that controversy, and opposed Pelagianism at the same time, using the inspired insight of Duns Scotus.
No personal guilt (culpa) is inherited per the theology of the Latin Church:
CCC 405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called “concupiscence”. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
According to Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, London, James Clark and Co., 1957, p. 88. The supernatural of the Latin Church is the uncreated divine energies of the eastern Churches.
Western terms: uncreated essence, uncreated supernatural, created preternatural, created natural. So of this can be verified in the Fr. Hardon Dictionary, Uncreated Grace:
God himself, insofar as in his love he has predetermined gifts of grace. There 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.
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Ghosty
Guest
That’s because Baptism is a washing away of sin. That is the meaning of the word, to wash, and the language of Scripture is to “wash away sins”. The only natural way to refer to Original Sin, with regard to Baptism, is that Baptism washes it away. Do you believe that when you commit sin that it adds something substantial on your soul, or do you believe that it is a failure, a missing of the mark, a lack of what you should be?
My understanding of sin, in Byzantine theology, is that it is something that is missing, something that is lacking, yet the language of Baptism is still of “washing away”, and all of our Fathers speak of “washing away sin”. If sin is something lacking, then why do we use the language of “washing away”? We use it because it is the language of Scripture. When we sin we fall short, we lack something, and yet this “lacking” is washed away by Baptism. It doesn’t mean that our “lacking something” becomes “something”, it just means that we honor the language of Scripture. The Latins do the same when they say that Original Sin (a lacking, a privation) is washed away by Baptism.
Peace and God bless!
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Vico
Guest
I remember the pre-confession study (probably no 0 Baltimore) that had pictures of milk bottles, some with specks (sin). The word used consistently is guilt, and that is from the Latin reatus peona (penal consequence) rather than reatus culpa (guilt with fault). For the Immaculate Conception the word in Latin used for stain is labe. (Title: Regina sine labe originali concepta = Queen conceived without stain of original sin.)
The Baltimore Catechisms were as follows:
No. 00 for Prayer classes.
No. 0 for Confession classes and certain adults.
No. 1 for First Communion classes.
No. 2 for Confirmation classes.
No. 3 for two years’ course for Post-Confirmation classes.
No. 4 for Teachers and Teachers’ Training classes (expanded No. 2 edition.)
No. 00 gives the Prayers and Acts to be learned before the study of the Catechisms begins:
No. 0 contains one half the questions of No.1;
No. 1 half the questions of No. 2;
No. 2 one-third the questions of No. 3, and
No. 4 (an Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism) furnishes much additional information with copious explanations and examples.
BC No. 1
47. Q. What is the sin called which we inherit from our first parents?
A. The sin which we inherit from our first parents is called original sin.
BC No. 2
Q. 266. Why is this sin called original?
A. This sin is called original because it comes down to us from our first parents, and we are brought into the world with its guilt on our soul.
BC No. 3
Q. 277. Is original sin the only kind of sin?
A. Original sin is not the only kind of sin; there is another kind of sin, which we commit ourselves, called actual sin.
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Marybeloved
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Which "past"? Read the article from catholic encyclopedia that shows that the understanding (privation) is as old as 1500 years and was explicitly referred to at the Council of Trent, 500 years ago. Every catechism of the past has that understanding, every Saint from the past 1,000 years that I have ever read on this issue has that understanding
. In fact “mortal sin” itself is a complete turning away from God or severing communion- It’s not like soil on a clean white floor.You can’t force a “history” that is not true just to justify the poor understanding you received from the bad catechesis you received. Millions have poor catechesis, East and West- What is responsible is that once you understand the true facts, you ought to be willing to accept it rather than cling to the false notions you picked up for whatever reason (bad catechesis, anti-ecumenical polemicism etc)!! You can’t insist that : This is what I understood, therefor this was the teaching “in the past” when you have been show that what you were “taught” is a clear contradiction with what the CC teaches both now and in the past.
Peace!
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