Original Sin - Catholic and Orthodox

[eOxy]

The definitions I quoted for “liability” are not legal ones, but fit the context perfect well, and make the meaning of the Catholic teaching clear.

You should see that with Vico, not with me. He provided the translation of ‘reatus’ within the meaning given by Trent, which is apparently a legal one and not alike the one you provided.

Again, why don’t you RCs settle it withim yourselves first, and then come to tell us what have you agreed?

I am happy to note some development in your thinking: you apparently now recognize, even in a legal context, that “liabilities” can be removed amicably. Which, indeed, is what happened.

I am very interested to hear your explanation about the settlement that already happened. If that is so, why present RCs speak about “inherited” and “reatus” as contracted guilt?

How could a settled liability can be inherited / transferred to the debtor’s descendants?

 

[Vico]

Do you deny “the stain”, or you just conveniently forgot to mention it?

Although you are asking dvdjs, if you recall, the stain of original sin is the “lack of sanctifiying grace” (or the “absence of indwelling of the Holy Spirit”) which we are born with, is also called the death of the soul; it is a state. (This death of the soul happened to Adam the day he sinned, followed by bodily death at the end of his life, and the other physical hardships brought on through that orginal sin from that day on.)

 

[eOxy]

Although you are asking dvdjs,

Exactly.

Why do you decide not to answer on his behalf the question I asked him?

 

[dvdjs]

You should see that with Vico, not with me. He provided the translation of ‘reatus’ within the meaning given by Trent, which is apparently a legal one and not alike the one you provided. Again, why don’t you RCs settle it withim yourselves first, and then come to tell us what have you agreed?

I am very interested to hear your explanation about the settlement that already happened. If that is so, why present RCs speak about “inherited” and “reatus” as contracted guilt?

1. Who do you refer to with the question about “you RCs”? Notice that I am not an RC.
2. I have seen what Vico has written; I don’t have an issue. His discussion of inheritance is fine and perfectly Orthodox. You are the one talking about “contracted guilt”, and then by semantical legerdemain forcing meanings of the phrase that are inconsistent with Catholic teaching. They may also be inconsistent with your conception of God’s justice; so what? That is meaningless to me, since what you write is inconsistent with Catholic teaching.

How could a settled liability can be inherited / transferred to the debtor’s descendants?

The liability is manifest. For example, we are mortal. We inherit our mortality for our parents, and so on. I think we agree to this point.

As to the settlement: I would point yet again, to God’s plan of salvation, which I summarized before, with a quotation form the anaphora in the liturgy of SJ Chrysostom. “Thou it was who brought us from non-existence into being, and when we had fallen away, didst raise us up again, and didst not cease to do all things until Thou hadst brought us up to heaven and hadst endowed us with 'Thy Kingdom which is to come.” God has responded decisively to the fall; our subjugation to mortality has been vanquished. I don’t understand why you seem to think there is something lacking let alone unjust in His plan to “do all things until Thou hadst brought us up to heaven and hadst endowed us with 'Thy Kingdom which is to come.”

 

[dvdjs]

1. Who do you refer to with the question about “you RCs”? Notice that I am not an RC.
2. I have seen what Vico has written; I don’t have an issue. His discussion of inheritance is fine and perfectly Orthodox. You are the one talking about “contracted guilt”, and then by semantical legerdemain forcing meanings of the phrase that are inconsistent with Catholic teaching. They may also be inconsistent with your conception of God’s justice; so what? That is meaningless to us, since what you write is inconsistent with Catholic teaching.

The liability is manifest. For example, we are mortal. We inherit our mortality for our parents, and so on. I think we agree to this point.

As to the settlement: I would point yet again, to God’s plan of salvation, which I summarized before, with a quotation from the anaphora in the liturgy of SJ Chrysostom. “Thou it was who brought us from non-existence into being, and when we had fallen away, didst raise us up again, and didst not cease to do all things until Thou hadst brought us up to heaven and hadst endowed us with 'Thy Kingdom which is to come.” God has responded decisively to the fall; our subjugation to mortality has been vanquished. I don’t understand why you seem to think there is something lacking let alone unjust in His plan to “do all things until Thou hadst brought us up to heaven and hadst endowed us with 'Thy Kingdom which is to come.”

 

[eOxy]

1. I have seen what Vico has written; I don’t have an issue.

Let me summarize:

1. I’ve been pointing to the difference between Orthodox understanding of Ancestral Sin and RCs’ understanding of Original Sin (BTW, if you aren’t a RC, why are you explaining Original Sin?), stressing the element of guilt in RCs Original Sin which is non-existing in Orthodox understanding.
2. Vico pointed (and proved as fas as I am concerned) that there is no word guilt in the decisions of Trent (in spite of all English translations available online using the word guilt); instead, there is the word reatus, used with explicit legal terminology to refer to a procedural situation, to a position of the defendant in a proceeding, with the meaning:

2.1) liability (procedural, as opposed to subtantial);
2.2) obligation to suffer punishment;

Now you rise accusing me of misunderstanding of your RC position because I stick with his legalistic exposition of the problem?!?

This is ridiculous and I laugh out loud.

Are you finally able to come up with an undisputed RC position on your own doctrine of Original Sin?

For a start my point on difference is proved - Orthodox can always expose the understanding of Ancestral Sin easily and without dispute.

 

[eOxy]

The liability is manifest. For example, we are mortal. We inherit our mortality for our parents, and so on. I think we agree to this point.

No, we don’t.

What you are exposing is contradictio in adjecto.

Once a liability is settled, it doesn’t exist anymore. That’s the meaning of the word.

Mind, I don’t buy hogwash theology. I am an Orthodox Christian.

 

[dvdjs]

Let me summarize:

1. I’ve been pointing to the difference between Orthodox understanding of Ancestral Sin and RCs’ understanding of Original Sin (BTW, if you aren’t a RC, why are you explaining Original Sin?), stressing the element of guilt in RCs Original Sin which is non-existing in Orthodox understanding.
2. Vico pointed (and proved as fas as I am concerned) that there is no word guilt in the decisions of Trent (in spite of all English translations available online using the word guilt); instead, there is the word reatus, used with explicit legal terminology to refer to a procedural situation, to a position of the defendant in a proceeding, with the meaning:

2.1) liability (procedural, as opposed to subtantial);
2.2) obligation to suffer punishment;

Now you rise accusing me of misunderstanding of your RC position because I stick with his legalistic exposition of the problem?!?

This is ridiculous and I laugh out loud.

Are you finally able to come up with an undisputed RC position on your own doctrine of Original Sin?

For a start my point on difference is proved - Orthodox can always expose the understanding of Ancestral Sin easily and without dispute.

 

[dvdjs]

Let me summarize:

1. I’ve been pointing to the difference between Orthodox understanding of Ancestral Sin and RCs’ understanding of Original Sin (BTW, if you aren’t a RC, why are you explaining Original Sin?), stressing the element of guilt in RCs Original Sin which is non-existing in Orthodox understanding.

You have been pointing out one of the understandings of EO on Ancestral Sin. As other posters have stated, it is trivial to search the internet for many authoritative writings in the EOC that are much closer to the Catholic teaching which you seem to have so much trouble grasping. Your stress on the element of “guilt” is amazing, since that element, as you describe it, is absent from Catholic teaching as well. If you want a definitive answer on these matters, just look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and, for example, the discourses of Pope JPII on the relevant sections of the catechism.

1. Vico pointed (and proved as fas as I am concerned) that there is no word guilt in the decisions of Trent (in spite of all English translations available online using the word guilt); instead, there is the word reatus, used with explicit legal terminology to refer to a procedural situation, to a position of the defendant in a proceeding, with the meaning:

2.1) liability (procedural, as opposed to subtantial);
2.2) obligation to suffer punishment;

Now you rise accusing me of misunderstanding of your RC position because I stick with his legalistic exposition of the problem?!? This is ridiculous and I laugh out loud.

I reviewed posts 80-83. I have agreed with Vico’s point that you seem to grasp on the tranlsation of “reatus”. (See also CCC). But it is you, not Vico, that then chooses to play with the meaning by selecting certain defintions (that you elaborate here), then changing them again to shift the meaning (pending litigation), and build straw men. Don’t put this maneuver on Vico.

Are you finally able to come up with an undisputed RC position on your own doctrine of Original Sin?

I’ve already pointed you to the CCC.

For a start my point on difference is proved - Orthodox can always expose the understanding of Ancestral Sin easily and without dispute.

As pointed out earlier in the thread, repeated here, this remark is unhistorical to say the least.
I suspect you don’t have much familiarity with the various EO writings on this subject. But then again you didn’t recognize the anaphora of SJ Chyrsostom.

 

[dvdjs]

No, we don’t.

Really?
What don’t you accept: a) that you are born mortal; or b) that characteristic of mortality is inherited; or c) both a) and b). And can you please provide citations form an EO authority to support the idea that this claim is among the teachings of the EO church.?

What you are exposing is contradictio in adjecto.
Once a liability is settled, it doesn’t exist anymore. That’s the meaning of the word

As I suspected, you really object to God’s plan of salvation. I don’t think that there is much to gained from pursuing this line of thinking. However, there is a beauty to the fact that that “amicable settlement” which occurred once in time, is mirrored in the salvation of each individual soul.

 

[Vico]

Exactly.

Why do you decide not to answer on his behalf the question I asked him?

I am not speaking for dvdjs, rather re-iterating the definition of “the stain” as it may have been lost sight of, used in your question “Do you deny “the stain”, or you just conveniently forgot to mention it?”

I can comment on the prior question you asked dvdjs: “I am very interested to hear your explanation about the settlement that already happened. If that is so, why present RCs speak about “inherited” and “reatus” as contracted guilt?”

First, the Catholic Latin Church is what most people mean by Roman Catholic, but the other 22 Eastern Catholic Sui Juris (autonomous) Churches include 14 churches that are Byzantine and in the hierarchy of the Patriarch of Rome. The same ‘de fide’ dogma is accepted, yet the doctrinal expressions of each church can be unique. One must be careful to differentiate between dogma and opinion.

Secondly, the answer was already provided in previous posts on how the word guilt has been used as the English translation of reatus, which is the incorrect word to use based upon the standard English dictionary meaning of guilt. When “guilt” or “guilty” is used with regard to inheritance, it is only an analogy. Typically Trent documents are not quoted in the original Latin, along with defintions for the Latin theological terms used. We may say “I contracted a cold”. By analogy, we are “guilty” not personally but impersonally, not by choices and actions but by nature. This particular use of analogy is not a dogma, and is not a required belief. (Trent was refuting Lutheran teaching regarding original sin and baptism and that is why the statement was made then.)

In the post from yesterday the dogmatic statements (from Ludwig Ott) nor the Catechism (1997) do not include any such idea of personal guilt.

 

[eOxy]

Really?
What don’t you accept:

LOL

You are a funny guy, but we don’t share the same sense of humor. Also, please stick with the subject of this thread - you are free to open a new one to debate my ignorance of John Christosomos’ Liturgy .

I don’t accept that a settled liability can be transferred/assigned by debtor / inherited by debtor’s heirs. This is specific teaching of Trent that I reject alltogether and your hogwash translation/interpretation changed nothing.

 

[eOxy]

but the other 22 Eastern Catholic Sui Juris (autonomous) Churches include 14 churches that are Byzantine and

There is no such a thing, since there is no “Byzantine”. It never existed. There was only Roman Empire, with the capital in Constantinopolis, the longest lasting Empire in human history.

One must be careful to differentiate between dogma and opinion.

I believe I hold to that pretty well, I’ve always attributed more authority to the canons of the Council of Trent from the interpretations of it I’ve read around here.

When “guilt” or “guilty” is used with regard to inheritance, it is only an analogy.

Are you adding yet another hogwash here? Here is the meaning of the word “analogy” link and, holding to it, your explanations is just an utter nonsense.

Analogy to what? To what is the inherited guilt “an analogy”?

By analogy, we are “guilty” not personally but impersonally, not by choices and actions but by nature.

I reject one can be guilty in any other fashion but presonaly.

I reject nature can be guilty. Only a person can be guilty.

As a side note, how do you manage to put two non-sense claims in one sentence? Is there a particular training for that you are undergoing?

It doesn’t work for Orthodox - you need to explain in firm and logical terms, not in circular logic and non-sense terminology, either inventing new words (as you invented “manifestation” in Florence) or attributing new meanings to already known words to emphasize alleged Orthodox misunderstanding. We just don’t buy hogwash and nonsense.

This particular use of analogy is not a dogma, and is not a required belief. (Trent was refuting Lutheran teaching regarding original sin and baptism and that is why the statement was made then.)

If you claim that the understanding has evolved from Trent, then this was what I’ve been saying all along.

In the post from yesterday the dogmatic statements (from Ludwig Ott) nor the Catechism (1997) do not include any such idea of personal guilt.

Actually, I call another teaching of Latin Orthodox Church - Ocam’s Razor link that RCs have been persistently violating on this thread.

 

[Vico]

eOxy, you said: “I’ve always attributed more authority to the canons of the Council of Trent”.

Hopefully you will read the current Catechism of the Catholic Church to see what was the meaning, rather than opinions. As taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"404 … By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 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. "

I wrote: “By analogy, we are “guilty” not personally but impersonally, not by choices and actions but by nature.”

eOxy: “I reject one can be guilty in any other fashion but presonaly. I reject nature can be guilty. Only a person can be guilty.”

I also reject that nature can be guilty, but one can be liable due to their nature. (One can be liable to being shot when born in a war zone.) That is what is meant; one is liable to suffering due to the state they are born in, which is inherited. Two Latin words as used by Rome at Trent are culpa and reatus and have both been translated into the English word guilt but have different meanings. Culpa is fault, and reatus is liability but not with personal fault.

eOxy: “As a side note, how do you manage to put two non-sense claims in one sentence? Is there a particular training for that you are undergoing?”

No, I am sorry it did not make sense to you. Analogy means similar not identical. There is an analogy between:

1. receiving a punishment for an personal fault, and
2. undergoing sufferings as a human being as a result of the state of the inherited human nature.
   So 2 is “like” 1.

I think you are missing the understanding of the Latin word reatus which is translated sometimes as guilt. It would be closest to imputed guilt. Like ascription: arbitrary placement (as at birth) in a particular social status.

One person explains: “What was literally a punishment of our first parents for their culpa thus becomes only analogously a punishment for us—just as what was literally sin in them, i.e. the Fall, becomes sin only analogously, i.e. fallenness, in us.” - Mike L.

See: mliccione.blogspot.com/2007/04/development-and-negation-vii-original.html

eOxy, you said “”… Byzantine". It never existed."

I use the definition of the 14 Catholic churches that are Byzantine as those under the Patriarch of Rome also known as the Greek Catholic churches. For you, we can call them the “14 churches that are of the Roman Empire with the capital in Constantinopolis under the Patriarch of Rome”.

 

[eOxy]

Just a couple of clarifications:

Analogy means similar not identical.

No.

Analogy means the specific technique in interpreting legal norm.

If there is a specific collection of facts and circumstances which match no specific legal norm to be applied on it, the most similar norm can be applied by analogy.

Exactly the opposite technique is called argumentum a contrario.

These techniques were developed by Roman Law and jurisprudence, the most notable source being the Code of Justinian, the very same you referred when you were trying to describe the meaning of reatus as given by Trent. .

There is an analogy between:

1. receiving a punishment for an personal fault, and
2. undergoing sufferings as a human being as a result of the state of the inherited human nature.
   So 2 is “like” 1.

I am glad you finally admitted what I always knew was a part of the RCs understanding of Original Sin.

 

[fhansen]

I am glad you finally admitted what I always knew was a part of the RCs understanding of Original Sin.

But are you implying that Adams descendants* don’t* suffer as a result of his sin?

 

[Vico]

eOxy, you said: “I am glad you finally admitted what I always knew was a part of the RCs understanding of Original Sin.”

The analogy was mentioned, is nothing new, and was accepted early on in this thread with the first mention Catholic Catechism 404.

You said in post #30: “We do not inherit the sin. However, we do believe that we inherit the consequences of the Ancestral Sin.”

This is also the Catholic teaching; we do not inherit the actual sin but we do inherit the consequences which are the state of death (mortality) and death of the soul, the affected human nature:

404 …this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. … 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. "

In various writings, you will see the word sin used with any of these meanings: an offense, a reprehensible action, a shortcoming or fault, a transgression, or a state. Definition 2b Merrian Webster Online Dictionary also shows the analogical use: “a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is enstranged from God.” So it would even be correct, even though confusing sometimes, to call the state a sin.

 

[dvdjs]

LOL

You are a funny guy, but we don’t share the same sense of humor. Also, please stick with the subject of this thread - you are free to open a new one to debate my ignorance of John Christosomos’ Liturgy .

I don’t accept that a settled liability can be transferred/assigned by debtor / inherited by debtor’s heirs. This is specific teaching of Trent that I reject alltogether and your hogwash translation/interpretation changed nothing.

Good. You express no objection to the idea that a liability that applies by inheritance to all humanity. You only object to God’s plan of salvation, as I had suspected all along.

Let’s first dispatch with your objection. Even in the legal sense, a case can reach a settlement. the terms of which are executed over time - for example, alimony payments after a divorce, or in the execution of trusts dispensed over generations. So your legal objection is without merit. In the soteriological realm, the settlement of this liability through Christ’s death and resurrection is, obviously, dispensed to each of us through the mysteries of the His trust, the Church. Now I stipulate that you (and I ) might not favor a forensic perspective, but your objections to it are not substantial ones, just words.

As to the “specific teaching of Trent”, I don’t see your point. Here are the Decrees concerning Original Sin. history.hanover.edu/texts/Trent/ct05os.htm
Perhaps you can clarify your point, quoting these texts.

 

[dvdjs]

LOL

You are a funny guy, but we don’t share the same sense of humor. Also, please stick with the subject of this thread - you are free to open a new one to debate my ignorance of John Christosomos’ Liturgy .

I don’t accept that a settled liability can be transferred/assigned by debtor / inherited by debtor’s heirs. This is specific teaching of Trent that I reject alltogether and your hogwash translation/interpretation changed nothing.

Good. You express no objection to the idea that a liability that applies by inheritance to all humanity. You only object to God’s plan of salvation, as I had suspected all along.

Let’s first dispatch with your objection. Even in the legal sense, a case can reach a settlement. the terms of which are executed over time - for example, alimony payments after a divorce, or in the execution of trusts dispensed over generations. So your legal objection is without merit. In the soteriological realm, the settlement of this liability through Christ’s death and resurrection is, obviously, dispensed to each of us through the mysteries of the His trust, the Church. Now I stipulate that you (and I ) might not favor a forensic perspective, but your objections to it are not substantial ones, just words.

As to the “specific teaching of Trent”, I don’t see your point. Here are the Decrees concerning Original Sin. history.hanover.edu/texts/Trent/ct05os.htm
Perhaps you can clarify your point, quoting these texts.

 

[eOxy]

You express no objection to the idea that a liability that applies by inheritance to all humanity.

Contrary, I just restricted my response to debunk the sheer nonsense in your theory.

Who would be the creditor of the “liability that applies by inheritance to all humanity”? To whom would the humanity be liable? How would he enforce/execute the claim?

How had the creditor acquired the claim over liability of humankind that is referred by CCC as “contracted sin”? Did he have a contract? If he did, with whom?

Even in the legal sense, a case can reach a settlement. the terms of which are executed over time - for example, alimony payments after a divorce, or in the execution of trusts dispensed over generations.

The liability exist only until it’s settled. Upon settlement, it becomes debt. Legal grounds for the liability such as guilt of various degrees, or responsibility without guilt, become obsolete at that moment.

In the soteriological realm, the settlement of this liability through Christ’s death and resurrection is, obviously, dispensed to each of us through the mysteries of the His trust, the Church.

Unlike anything you wrote before, this is actually absolutely Orthodox and is one of the meanings and reasons (kindly note the emphasize on “one of”) for Christs Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. St. Athanasios wrote about it in “On Incarnation…”.

But why are you speaking about the liability/reatus/guilt after the settlement? Do you deny that Christs’ Incarnation, Death and Resurrection was sufficient?

As to the “specific teaching of Trent”, I don’t see your point. Here are the Decrees concerning Original Sin. history.hanover.edu/texts/Trent/ct05os.htm
Perhaps you can clarify your point, quoting these texts.

I’ve already done that in the posts Nos.: #33, #36, #39, #41 & #45. You just came late.