Original Sin

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

Precisely. One is reborn in the water of Bapstim ansd then one is immediately chismated with the oil of Chrism which is the Holy Spirit. Water **AND **Spirit.

The Lord was baptized in the river Jordan and then straighaway the Spirit descended on Him. A twofold action within the one event. Water and Spirit. Baptism and Chrismation.

Jesus was baptized with water and the Holy Spirit decended upon him. Peter tells the Jews that they need to be baptized to receive the Holy Spirit.

And Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:38

We are born from above through water and Spirit, not oil and Spirit. The water signifies the grace that it bestows, i.e. the water signifies the gift of the Holy Spirit that is bestowed by the Sacrament of Baptism.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

So how do you get an angry God from that? Consequence. You shall die. How? Were they immortal? NO. They hadn’t eaten from the tree of life, they were already mortal.

Who said anything about an angry God? Adam and Eve possessed the preternatural gift of bodily immortality in Paradise before the Fall. God expressly told Adam that he was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that if he did, death would be the consequence of his disobedience. What do you think, that Adam and Eve were destined to die even if they were obedient to God? There nothing in a scripture that supports such a crazy idea. God hates death, why would God send death to Adam and Eve if they were obedient?
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1Cor. 15:25-26

They hadn’t eaten from the tree of life, they were already mortal.

Adam and Eve were immortal before the Fall. If they had eaten of the Tree of Life in their unfallen state, they would have received more life than they already possessed. They would have become partakers of the divine life. The Tree of Life is a type that finds its fulfillment in the Eucharist.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever …
John 6:51

OK, please, since when has the RCC talked in terms of Uncreated Grace?

Since always. You just don’t understand what the Catholic Church actually teaches, but this is a good place to have your misconceptions cleared up.

The Uncreated Grace is God Himself in so far as He, in His love, from all eternity has pre-determined the gifts of grace, in so far as He has communicated Himself in the Incarnation of Christ’s Humanity (gratia unionis), in so far as He indwells in the souls of the justified, and in so far as He gives Himself to the blessed for possession and enjoyment of the Beatific Vision. The Hypostatic-Union, The Indwelling and the Beatific Vision, considered as acts, are indeed created graces, for they had a beginning in time. But the gift which is conferred on a creature in these acts is uncreated.

Created grace is a supernatural gift or operation really distinct from God.

Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

Now you’re back to supernatural sanctifying grace - So how is the Holy Spirit’s indwelling different from that?

Adam and Eve were immaculate creations. God created them holy, and they were destined by God to become fully “divinized”. I suppose our Byzantine Rite brothers would say that Adam and Eve were holy creations that were destined for eternal glory through theosis.

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

398 ** In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. **Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. ** Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.

God can’t create beings that are anything less than perfect, and he certainly didn’t create beings subject to his enemy, death.

The supernatural grace that Adam and Eve possessed in their original innocence was not the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but they were predestined by God to receive that great grace. Remember, Catholics can talk about grace with more than just one meaning. e.g. actual grace, healing grace, charismatic grace, sanctifying grace …

For the RCC sin is what Adam gained by loss of sanctifying grace, putting him in a state of sinfulness utterly without God’s friendship …Your doctrine makes everyone a graceless sinner, and dead.

I think that you are confusing what Calvinists believe with what Catholics believe. Catholics don’t believe in total depravity.

 

[Myhrr]

Father Ambrose:

It is making the ecumenical dialogue so much easier.

…but not for some of us…

This reminds me of the ‘transubstantiation’ arguments’, But you called it transubstantiation! But we didn’t mean it the way you mean it!

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

Who said anything about an angry God?

It’s part of your Church’s de fide teaching on Original Sin, I’ve already covered this aspect with you:

1. Our first parents (the Decree says: Primum hominem Adam), in the earthly paradise (and therefore in the state of original justice and perfection) sinned gravely by transgressing the commandment of God. Because of their sin they lost santifying grace; likewise they lost also the holiness and justice in which they were “constituted” from the beginning, **drawing down upon themselves the anger of God. **The consequence of this sin was death as we now know it … we note that the Tridentine Decree refers to the “sin of Adam” inasmuch as it was our first parents’ own personal sin (what the theologians call peccatum originale originans) but it does not fail to describe its fateful consequences in the history of mankind (the so-called peccatum originale originatum).

This is from Pope John Paul II’s Catechis on Original Sin.

This is de fide teaching from the de fide Teaching Authority. There’s a link from my first post on this thread to where the discussion began.

Adam and Eve possessed the preternatural gift of bodily immortality in Paradise before the Fall. God expressly told Adam that he was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that if he did, death would be the consequence of his disobedience. What do you think, that Adam and Eve were destined to die even if they were obedient to God? There nothing in a scripture that supports such a crazy idea. God hates death, why would God send death to Adam and Eve if they were obedient?

This is your Church’s teaching and your question is along the lines of all those who’ve ever argued against the RCC Original Sin doctrines as taught by Augustine and dogmatised by your Church, it is not shown in Scripture.

But they did eat it and 23 God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of life and eat, and so he shall live for ever - 24 So the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the ground out of which he was taken.

Since Adam hadn’t eaten of the tree of life which gave eternal life before he was sent out of the garden by God, the RCC dogma that Adam’s sin brought physical death isn’t proved.

From Pope John Paul II’s Summary of Catchesis on Original Sin, above.

IV 5. Our first parents (the Decree says: Primum hominem Adam), in the earthly paradise (and therefore in the state of original justice and perfection) sinned gravely by transgressing the commandment of God. Because of their sin they lost santifying grace; likewise they lost also the holiness and justice in which they were “constituted” from the beginning, drawing down upon themselves the anger of God. **The consequence of this sin was death as we now know it …

**Here of course you agree with the RCC teaching, claiming that Adam and Eve were immortals.

My second argument against the RCC’s Original Sin is Augustine’s actual reading of 23 which is as JPII explained in IV 5.

Septuagint

**4 **but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
From

Augustine has misread this explanation of God’s, don’t or you’ll die, as ‘don’t, or I’ll kill you’, a punishment for disobedience from an angry God.

The Orthodox don’t recognise this God of the RCC.

The River of Fire By: Alexander Kalomiros

continued

 

[Myhrr]

Continued to Matt16_18

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1Cor. 15:25-26

But what sort of death is meant here?

Adam and Eve were immortal before the Fall. If they had eaten of the Tree of Life in their unfallen state, they would have received more life than they already possessed. They would have become partakers of the divine life. The Tree of Life is a type that finds its fulfillment in the Eucharist.

Adam and Eve were already created in both the image and likeness of God, Genesis I.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever …

John 6:51

This is my body, this is my blood of the new covenant - your transubstantiation dogma limits this, could be read as any sandwich with a glass of bubbly on a summer’s day, sez me…

Genesis I says ** 29** And God said, Behold I have given you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed which is upon all the earth … to you it shall be for food.

Have you eaten today?

Since always.You just don’t understand what the Catholic Church actually teaches, but this is a good place to have your misconceptions cleared up…

Or your misconceptions. Your post below is a very recent innovation and I don’t find it any of your doctrines prior to Paul VI’s influence.

Created grace is a supernatural gift or operation really distinct from God.

Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

Who is Dr Ludwig and when did he write about these fundamental Catholic Dogmas?

But he’s not saying here anything that your Church hasn’t said all along. This is your basic, de fide understanding of sanctifying grace which was lost on God’s angry punishment for disobedience leaving Adam without the friendship of God in a state of sinfulness, and because you say he was already immortal, and dead.

You’ll have great difficulty in following the arguments against this created grace doctrine, which the RCC has held since Augustine, either from those at the time or from us now if you don’t first learn what the Orthodox mean by grace and taking care not to include any of the admixture since Paul VI which is now making you deny your own de fide doctrines. Such as an angry God which is part and parcel of your dogma on Original Sin. See note from John Paul II’s Catechis.

continued

 

[Myhrr]

Continued to Matt16_18

The Uncreated Grace is God Himself in so far as He, in His love, from all eternity has pre-determined the gifts of grace, in so far as He has communicated Himself in the Incarnation of Christ’s Humanity (gratia unionis), in so far as He indwells in the souls of the justified, and in so far as He gives Himself to the blessed for possession and enjoyment of the Beatific Vision. The Hypostatic-Union, The Indwelling and the Beatific Vision, considered as acts, are indeed created graces, for they had a beginning in time. But the gift which is conferred on a creature in these acts is uncreated.

From the CCC? This also brings in the pre-determination slant much argued against, but again here it’s an attempt to include de fide created grace as opposed to uncreated grace, which doctrine your Church has always rejected up until recently and it’s by no means proved that it has accepted it even though it uses the term, by somehow ‘joining’ it to this previously rejected idea it wants to bring in. I have no objection to your Church incorporating uncreated grace, what I do object to is the impression it gives that previous de fide teachings are not still in force. They must by definition colour, change, anything superimposed on them.

Because, because they are still in force this description of created grace is not the same as the Orthodox have it. All that’s happened here is the term has been misappropriated, it appears to me deliberately to create confusion… Father Ambrose is more generous than I here.

Your baptism did not include the Gift of the Holy Spirit pre Paul VI, and I’m not sure that it actually does now, the gift of strength from the Holy Spirit was given at confirmation.

This is in direct contrast to the Orthodox who have always, from the beginning, given the Gift of the Holy Spirit to each baptised member at chrismation, as a direct personal, individual gift.

Your baptism may or may not do that now, but prior to Paul VI it didn’t. Confirmation was given later and that was a specific gift of the Holy Spirit and not the whole of God the Holy Ghost. Confirmation was/(still is?) the connection of the baptised member to the bishop confirming, and so through that bishop to the head of the RCC, the Bishop of Rome.

One of the arguments against the filioque, from those who have looked at these doctrines and dogmas carefully, is that because of the Bishop of Rome’s development to being a complete substitution for Christ the filioque addition is saying that the Gift of the Holy Spirit comes from the Bishop of Rome as the principal.

I think these are serious differences, but because they are no longer so obviously in place it becomes frustrating to discuss them. I hope we can both take this gently.

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

Adam and Eve were immaculate creations. God created them holy, and they were destined by God to become fully “divinized”. I suppose our Byzantine Rite brothers would say that Adam and Eve were holy creations that were destined for eternal glory through theosis.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

**398 **In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. **Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. **Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.

Matt, here is another example of the problem I’m trying to point out to you, your Church never used the word divinized before Paul VI - it’s an Orthodox term, which he says he has taken from the Orthodox, and your use of it out of context of *Orthodox doctrine *is at best confusing.

Your Original Sin doctrines are based on Genesis II not Genesis I - man, male and female both, was created in the image and likeness of God. Orthodox doctrine doesn’t have ‘obedience’ to God as a defining dogma in relation to the fall, this is all tied up with the RCC’s juridical view of God which is completely alien to the Orthodox.

probe.org/docs/east-orth.html

Two points from the above which I’ve just found which explains this:

“As the image of God, we are icons of God. There is a reflection of God in us by nature. However, we grow in the likeness of God, or “the assimilation to God through virtue.” If we make proper use of our ability to have communion with God, “then we will become ‘like’ God, we will acquire the divine likeness. . . . To acquire the likeness is to be deified, it is to become a ‘second god’, a ‘god by grace’.” This is a goal we only acquire by degrees. “However sinful we may be, we never lose the image; but the likeness depends upon our moral choice, upon our ‘virtue’, and so it is destroyed by sin.”{31}”

For the Orthodox sin is missing the mark ( and yes I have seen it slipped in to your CCC) missing the target, sin is not thought of as in your juridical relationship with God based a superior requiring obedience and being punished for every infraction in anger.

I do understand that this is difficult for you because of the recent use of Orthodox terms, which is why I say you’d need to understand them in context first. For example, the second point from the above analysis of Easter Orthodoxy:

“The whole of the sacramental theology of Orthodoxy is grounded in the Incarnation of Christ. The Incarnation is so significant that Orthodox believe it would have occurred even if Adam and Eve hadn’t fallen into sin. It was an act of love–God sending His Son to commune with us. Because of sin, however, it also became an act of salvation.”

We’re not talking from the same viewpoint at all. All the emphasis in the West from the RCC has been on the Crucifixion, the substitutionary atonement which is not the whole emphasis of the Orthodox who see salvation first and last in terms of Christ’s incarnation. That is the most profound moment for the Orthodox, an act of love establishing God’s inextricable communion with us the created.

continued

 

[Myhrr]

Continued to Matt16_18

God can’t create beings that are anything less than perfect, and he certainly didn’t create beings subject to his enemy, death.

You haven’t shown that God didn’t create us mortal and I have shown logically that he did. Genesis I, we eat to live.

The supernatural grace that Adam and Eve possessed in their original innocence was not the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but they were predestined by God to receive that great grace. Remember, Catholics can talk about grace with more than just one meaning. e.g. actual grace, healing grace, charismatic grace, sanctifying grace …

Your doctrines don’t talk about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit personally so your reference to it isn’t a de fide teaching. That’s simply been added on and I ask how can it mean the same thing to the Orthodox when their gift of the Holy Ghost puts them into Pentecost and the RCC’s puts it first as a connection to a bishop in obedience to the Bishop of Rome?

It’s de fide that its the sanctifying grace which is lost through Adam by generation is created grace. The whole of the RCC since Augustine, some 1500 years, has taught this and as I’ve shown Pope John Paul II continued to demand obedience to this teaching dogmatised by the RCC.

Whatever you choose to make the Holy Spirit mean its meaning is only relevant to your own doctrines, it doesn’t equal the Orthodox meaning.

I think that you are confusing what Calvinists believe with what Catholics believe. Catholics don’t believe in total depravity.

I really don’t know all the arguments you have had with various ‘Protestants’ about this, to me it looks like an argument of ‘degrees of Augustine’s teaching’ on Original Sin.

Sorry if my reply is a bit confusing in any way, I’m rushed ,under a bit of pressure to download something.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myrhh

You simply don’t know what the Catholic Church teaches - divine sonship is the partaking of humans in the divine nature. Divine sonship is the whole basis for understanding the Catholic Doctrine of Justification. Catholics do not now, and never have, believed that the divine nature of God is something that is created !

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

460 ** The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:[78] “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”[79] “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”[80] “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”[81]

78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.
81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4.

You are proposing an alternative to Catholic doctrine, and I see that what you propose is full of contradiction. First, you claim that Catholic doctrine on the distinction between created grace and uncreated grace is flat out wrong, and that the ONLY way that grace in man can be understood is to accept that grace in man is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Let us accept your definition that grace in man can ONLY mean the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man and see where that leads us.

You say that the Orthodox believe that Adam and Eve had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before the Fall. Orthodox believe that the Catholic doctrine of original sin is false, because Catholics teach that the Fall brought the loss of grace in Adam and Eve. Catholics are also wrong because they believe that the Fall brought about the loss of grace in Adam’s progeny. Thus, by your own definition of grace, and by your own rejection of the idea that men and women are born in this world in a dis-graced condition, we must conclude that you believe that men and women are born in this world with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But that contradicts what you believe about the Orthodox Sacraments of Initiation, for you say this:
… the Orthodox who have always, from the beginning, given the Gift of the Holy Spirit to each baptised member at chrismation, as a direct personal, individual gift
You clearly contradict yourself when you say that the Orthodox believe that men and women already have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before they receive the Sacraments of baptism and chrismation, and that the Orthodox believe that Gift of the Holy Spirit is given to men and women when they receive baptism and chrismation.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

Who is Dr Ludwig and when did he write about these fundamental Catholic Dogmas?

Dr. Ludwig Ott was a professor of Catholic theology.

The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma is the English translation of Ott’s Grundriss der Katholishen Dogmatik, by Verlag Herder, Freibury, 1952.

Note that this book was published prior to Vatican II.

 

[RBushlow]

Myhrr:

The Orthodox don’t have your understanding of sin full stop. I’m not the best to explain it especially here where Matt16-18 has hijacked a term, Uncreated Grace, which has been categorically rejected by the RCC, but I’d have to refresh my memory on the history of this.

The Orthodox Church is a Sacramental Church, the 7 Sacraments as the RCC have it defined were an introduction into Orthodoxy, um, maybe it was Peter the Great who had a great love for all things Western that introduced it first, maybe it was the Greeks at some point, anyway, it doesn’t really mean anything to the Orthodox, the whole work of the Church,ekklesia, is Sacramental.

This is an explanation of Orthodox understanding of Uncreated Energy, the base from which creation is understood, not to be confused with Matt16-18’s explanation.

–If you premise that Grace is uncreated Energy (as do the Orthodox), then you will reject the JURIDICAL (satisfaction, atonement, justification, etc.) and of course non-ontological soteriology of Western Christians: You will accept that a worshiper benefits from what Christ God did because s/he shares God’s uncreated Life or uncreated Energies–so that what Christ has done is theirs (yours), and what they (you) do under the Energization of the all-holy Spirit (Philp. 2:13 in GREEK) is Christ’s–and hence soterial!

From orlapubs.com

There isn’t this ‘division’ in God’s creation of man that exists in the RCC doctrines, I don’t recall off-hand the exact wording of how you explain it, but you say that God created man then gave him this gift of sanctifying grace, something created for man to be able to live with God, sonship, subservience.

I’ll have a look for an easy explanation of the Orthodox, we’re created of the uncreated energies of God is my best effort.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. When one receives Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of Eucharist (sorry I don’t know the proper Orthodox term), we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Is our understanding of this similar to the Orthodox way?

 

[Matt16_18]

RBushlow:

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. When one receives Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of Eucharist (sorry I don’t know the proper Orthodox term), we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Is our understanding of this similar to the Orthodox way?

Catholics believe that we receive the Real Presence in the Eucharist - i.e. we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ.

Catholics have never believed that the divinity of Christ is something that is created.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

"The whole of the sacramental theology of Orthodoxy is grounded in the Incarnation of Christ. The Incarnation is so significant that Orthodox believe it would have occurred even if Adam and Eve hadn’t fallen into sin. … We’re not talking from the same viewpoint at all. All the emphasis in the West from the RCC has been on the Crucifixion, the substitutionary atonement which is not the whole emphasis of the Orthodox who see salvation first and last in terms of Christ’s incarnation. That is the most profound moment for the Orthodox, an act of love establishing God’s inextricable communion with us the created.

The idea that the “Incarnation is so significant that … it would have occurred even if Adam and Eve hadn’t fallen into sin” is hardly alien to Catholic theology. Blessed John Duns Scotus taught exactly this, and it is from the theology of the Duns Scotus that the Catholic Church developed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Look at this article, you will see that there are Catholic theologians that completely agree with the Orthodox theologians that believe the Incarnation “would have occurred even if Adam and Eve hadn’t fallen into sin”: Incarnation in Franciscan Spirituality

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

You haven’t shown that God didn’t create us mortal and I have shown logically that he did.

No, you didn’t logically show me that God created Adam mortal. All you have done is make an assertion that Adam was subject to death before the Fall, an assertion that is flatly contradicted by what is written in scriptures.

… sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men …
Romans 5:12

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

Your doctrines don’t talk about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit personally so your reference to it isn’t a de fide teaching. That’s simply been added on …

You are attacking a strawman. The Catholic Church has always taught that the Sacrament of Baptism brings about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that those who receive baptism become “partakers in the divine nature”.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
1Cor. 3:16

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

797** … the whole Spirit is in each of the members." The Holy Spirit makes the Church “the temple of the living God”

989 … If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.[535]

footnote 535: Rom 8:11; cf. 1 Thess 4:14; 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14; Phil 3:10-11.

**1265 ** Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,” member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.

**985 ** Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of the forgiveness of sins: it unites us to Christ, who died and rose, and gives us the Holy Spirit.

694 Water. The symbolism of water signifies the Holy Spirit’s action in Baptism, since after the invocation of the Holy Spirit it becomes the efficacious sacramental sign of new birth: just as the gestation of our first birth took place in water, so the water of Baptism truly signifies that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit. As “by one Spirit we were all baptized,” so we are also “made to drink of one Spirit.” Thus the Spirit is also personally the living water welling up from Christ crucified as its source and welling up in us to eternal life.

1262 The different effects of Baptism are signified by the perceptible elements of the sacramental rite. Immersion in water symbolizes not only death and purification, but also regeneration and renewal. Thus the two principal effects are purification from sins and new birth in the Holy Spirit.[65]

footnote 65 Cf. Acts 2:38; Jn 3:5.

Peter (said) to them, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.
Acts 2:38

Jesus answered, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
John 3:5​

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr

The Catholic Church also teaches us to give thanks to God the Father for his indwelling in us.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me … you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
John 14:10-11 & 20

CCC 2781 When we pray to the Father, we are in communion with him and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Then we know and recognize him with an ever new sense of wonder. The first phrase of the Our Father is a blessing of adoration before it is a supplication. For it is the glory of God that we should recognize him as “Father,” the true God. We give him thanks for having revealed his name to us, for the gift of believing in it, and for the indwelling of his Presence in us.

 

[Myhrr]

Myrhh

You simply don’t know what the Catholic Church teaches - divine sonship is the partaking of humans in the divine nature. Divine sonship is the whole basis for understanding the Catholic Doctrine of Justification. Catholics do not now, and never have, believed that the divine nature of God is something that is created !

Catechism of the Catholic Church

**460 **The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:[78] “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”[79] “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”[80] “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”[81]

78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.

81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4.

I still think we’re talking past each other. I’m still saying the CCC is using words from the Orthodox tradition without actually meaning the same thing. That’s all I’m saying here.

Show me where your tradition pre Vatican II teaches about theosis and divinization.

What does note 78 refer to? Isn’t 81 Aquinas actually denying individual theosis?

"John Paul II

It is a state in which sin exists and is marked by an inclination to sin. From that moment the whole history of humanity will be burdened by this state. In fact, the first human being (man and woman) received sanctifying grace from God not only for himself but as the founder of the human family for all his descendants. Therefore, through sin which set man in conflict with God, he forfeited grace (he fell into disgrace) even in regard to the inheritance for his descendants."

Note, John Paul II teaches as the RCC has always taught about sanctifying grace, that it is something ‘received’, given, a gift, - i.e. it is created. The Orthodox don’t have this, so we’re not talking about the same thing, is all I’m saying here.

You are proposing an alternative to Catholic doctrine, and I see that what you propose is full of contradiction. First, you claim that Catholic doctrine on the distinction between created grace and uncreated grace is flat out wrong, and that the ONLY way that grace in man can be understood is to accept that grace in man is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Let us accept your definition that grace in man can ONLY mean the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man and see where that leads us.

What I’m saying is the RCC never talked about uncreated grace, sanctifying grace is something created for man, a gift. Where did I say “that the ONLY way that grace in man can be understood is to accept that grace in man is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”?

You might now be using terms like ‘uncreated grace’, but it still doesn’t mean what it means to the Orthodox. Please, show me pre VAtican II fathers from the RCC who explain this.

continued

 

[Myhrr]

continued to Matt16_18

You say that the Orthodox believe that Adam and Eve had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before the Fall.

Where have I said this?

Orthodox believe that the Catholic doctrine of original sin is false, because Catholics teach that the Fall brought the loss of grace in Adam and Eve.

No, not because the fall brought the loss of grace - Orthodox don’t have your idea of grace, so it doesn’t come into it at all.

Orthodox know that the RCC doctrine of original sin is false because it’s a creation of Augustine’s from a misreading of Genesis and as OrthodoxXtian notes in another discussion, I’d forgotten this one, a misreading of Paul.

Post 11 on forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=1600

And the Septuagint doesn’t have the singular ‘sin’ in David’s whining about ‘I couldn’t help it’ blaming it all on his mother, it says ‘sins’, plural. So that isn’t, and can’t be used, as an endorsement of Original Sin.

Catholics are also wrong because they believe that the Fall brought about the loss of grace in Adam’s progeny. Thus, by your own definition of grace, and by your own rejection of the idea that men and women are born in this world in a dis-graced condition, we must conclude that you believe that men and women are born in this world with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Oh, terrific, as if this discussion doesn’t already feel like thinking in treacle, you make it more difficult by telling me I’ve said something because you conclude that I believe it!

I don’t believe in the RCC doctrine of Original Sin. I certainly do not believe that men and women are born into this world in a dis-graced condition. That’s just nonsense. Look around. Have you travelled? I’ve met people from all over the world who are not baptised Christians which your Church claims is that which restores this sanctifying grace and I don’t see anything in them or their varied spiritual traditions that proves they are in dis-grace, living in a sinful state without grace of any kind because of some daft idea that disobedience made God so angry that he punished Adam and Eve and we’re all guilty of this sin. You can keep it. But please, don’t steal terms from other belief systems to back this up and then say we’re talking about the same thing.

But that contradicts what you believe about the Orthodox Sacraments of Initiation, for you say this: … the Orthodox who have always, from the beginning, given the Gift of the Holy Spirit to each baptised member at chrismation, as a direct personal, individual giftYou clearly contradict yourself when you say that the Orthodox believe that men and women already have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before they receive the Sacraments of baptism and chrismation, and that the Orthodox believe that Gift of the Holy Spirit is given to men and women when they receive baptism and chrismation.

Maybe the treacle’s beginning to thin, are you referring to something I’ve said about image and likeness? I think, you might be taking the ‘likeness’ part and saying that is what you mean by ‘indwelling of the Holy Spirit’, is that right?

The Holy Spirit isn’t limited to those inside the Church, can’t remember the verse, but wasn’t it Peter who said about someone that they had already received the Holy Spirit so they might as well baptise them?

 

[Myhrr]

RBushlow:

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. When one receives Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of Eucharist (sorry I don’t know the proper Orthodox term), we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Is our understanding of this similar to the Orthodox way?

The Orthodox don’t accept the limitations your Church has put on this. The ol’ transubstantiation arguments, it doesn’t make sense to me to say that something that looks, smells, tastes of bread isn’t bread anymore, Christ didn’t say this is now my body and not bread - I think this dogma is a bit overworked. But, yes, they say it’s the body and blood.

There’s also an old argument that might not apply nowadays, but again I’m not sure if the change actually means the same as the Orthodox use because the filioque changes the Orthodox understanding of the Holy Spirit, and you have that Christ is absent on earth except through your Bishop of Rome. Your Church began to add the epiklesis which it’s not used in the Mass before. Not sure when this appeared in Rome, but Gregory 1 said it was in tradition, but it wasn’t absent in any of the other Church’s liturgies and early fathers said that the form in Rome wasn’t different from their own.

Maybe Father Ambrose can tell us more about this, I was told it came into Rome from Gaul in 2nd century. Is this when the tradition of the priest being Christ came in? That’s really a huge difference in form, but I haven’t found any discussions about it. Actually, I think most of the Orthodox don’t know that the priest is different in the RCC, I don’t think any of the arguments between them through the centuries picked up on this difference.