Original Sin

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

I am not a language scholar, so I can’t prove that the NAB translation is not faulty. But here is a comment that GrzeszDeL once made on a different thread concerning this same point that I made to you:

“Indeed, in guilt I was born, and in sin my mother conceived me.”

The Greek of Ps 51:5 says “en anomiais sunelayfthayn”; “sunelayfthayn” is the first person aorist passive of “sullambano” - to conceive. “Anomiais” is the dative (as befits a noun with “en”), so this is not “conceived by sinful means.” The plain sense of the words would suggest that the author was conceived with sin from the first moment of conception. I do not speak a lick of Hebrew, so I do not know if the Hebrew bears this out, but a Christian ought to value the Septuagint more than the Hebrew anyway.

Matt, please, slow down. To remind you, you were the first to bring this verse into the discussion, I then explained that in the Septuagint it was different. It does not say “sin” in the singular, it says “sins”, plural. I don’t know what the original Latin Vulgate had it but at a guess I’d say it followed what is now known as the Masoretic with sin in the singular. The revised Dewy whatsit has it in the plural “sins”.

This is, however, a classic example of how verses are misused to prove some misguided theory or other. There is no such creature as Original Sin as the RCC has it, it was all in the imagination of Augustine and on that ‘revelation’ the RCC built up its dogma. This verse is about a repentant David who wants to put the blame somewhere for the powerful lust/love he felt which drove him to kill another man so he could have his wife. He always was a bit hot-tempered, at one time he killed someone who’d taken refuge in the Temple, a practice he’d started I think, because he was so enraged. Then he felt extremely repentant.

It is obvious speaking about St. Augustine is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. It is also equally obvious that you are unaware that not everything that St. Augustine ever wrote is considered Catholic doctrine. But your historical revisionism is more than a little far afield. The Pelegian heresy was condemned at the third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus. If you want to defend Pelegianism, go ahead, but you aren’t going to find much support among the orthodox of the Orthodox.

I am very well aware that not everything Augustine taught is accepted by the RCC.

However, I shall for the moment continue to ignore your rudeness except for this comment noting it and remind you that we are talking about Augustine’s doctrines which touch on the differences between RCC and Orthodox understanding of Original Sin.

I have posted this before too:

406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. …The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

There is no such creature as Original Sin as the RCC has it, it was all in the imagination of Augustine …

Go back and read my last half dozen posts. I have shown that in the essentials, that the Orthodox are in agreement with what the Catholic Church teaches about original sin, and I have done that using the Orthodox sources that Fr. Ambrose has posted. I didn’t quote Augustine once.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

Go back and read my last half dozen posts. I have shown that in the essentials, that the Orthodox are in agreement with what the Catholic Church teaches about original sin, and I have done that using the Orthodox sources that Fr. Ambrose has posted. I didn’t quote Augustine once.

Oh no, Matt, there are significant differences between what the Catholics teach on original sin and what the Orthodox teach. The difference is highlighted in the reasons the Orthodox reject the RC doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as well as the Orthodox rejection of the Augustinian teaching on sin and grace and their espousal of the doctrine of synergy (better known as the heresy of semi-pelagianism to Roman Catholics.)

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

Oh no, Matt, there are significant differences between what the Catholics teach on original sin and what the Orthodox teach.

Check out my posts # 95 and #96. I have read the material that you posted, and I can’t find out any real difference between what the Orthodox teach concerning Adam’s original sin and its consequences, and what Catholics believe. It one of those situations where Catholics and Orthodox are interpreting the scriptures in the same way, but using different words to describe what they are saying.

 

[Matt16_18]

Mhyrr & Fr. Ambrose

More on created grace, uncreated grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit:
… The crowning point of justification is found in the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is the perfection and the supreme adornment of the justified soul. Adequately considered, the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit consists of a twofold grace, the created accidental grace (gratia creata accidentalis) and the uncreated substantial grace (gratia increata substantialis). The former is the basis and the indispensable assumption for the latter; for where God Himself erects His throne, there must be found a fitting and becoming adornment. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul must not be confounded with God’s presence in all created things, by virtue of the Divine attribute of Omnipresence. The personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul rests so securely upon the teaching of Holy Writ and of the Fathers that to deny it would constitute a grave error. In fact, St. Paul (Rom., v, 5) says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us”. In this passage the Apostle distinguishes clearly between the accidental grace of theological charity and the Person of the Giver. From this it follows that the Holy Spirit has been given to us, and dwells within us (Rom.,viii, 11), so that we really become temples of the Holy Ghost (I Cor., iii, 16 sq.; vi, 19). Among all the Fathers of the Church (excepting, perhaps, St. Augustine) it is the Greeks who are more especially noteworthy for their rapturous uttertances touching the infusion of the Holy Ghost. Note the expressions: “The replenishing of the soul with balsamic odours”, “a glow permeating the soul”, “a gilding and refining of the soul”. …

newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm]Sanctifying Grace

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI
Copyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton Company

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

Go back and read my last half dozen posts. I have shown that in the essentials, that the Orthodox are in agreement with what the Catholic Church teaches about original sin, and I have done that using the Orthodox sources that Fr. Ambrose has posted. I didn’t quote Augustine once.

If you mean the Orlapubs man? Some Greeks who have been influenced by contact with the RCC, at times, put Augustine on their list of Saints. I doubt very much you’ll find anything on his site promoting Augustine’s views of Original Sin…

However, seeing as that whole site is a spirited defence against the doctrines of the RCC then even if he is describing a creation on the idea of Genesis II we can be confident he definitely doesn’t understand Paul the way you do, your doctrines have to mangle Paul to make them fit Augustine. There’s a page of his I had bookmarked on Paul because I thought it might interest you, I’ll have a look for it.

My own thoughts on this >Paul was a Pharisee and even now the very Orthodox of the Masoretics work to that creation story. But, they haven’t misread Adam and Eve’s exit from Paradise as expulsion by an angry God who said they would kill them if they disobeyed. This is exactly how Augustine understood this, it’s a fact. The RCC dogmas on Original Sin are not in the Orthodox mindset.

Some very Orthodox thoughts about this:

aish.com/torahportion/appel/Adam_and_Eve_Eat_the_Apple.asp

And if you want more open minded thoughts from them:

google.com/custom?q=adam+and+eve&sa=Aish.com±+Google+Search&cof=AH%3Acenter%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.aish.com%3BAWFID%3A65cd3345a590c60b%3B&domains=www.aish.com&sitesearch=www.aish.com

I’m still trying to find time to concentrate on your last posts, I might not be able to reply for a couple of days or so.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr

Are you even reading my posts and following my argument as I have develop them?

I don’t see any evidence that you are doing this. You just blithely skip over the points that I make, and then try to bring the discussion back to your Augustine straw man. You are “too busy” to answer the questions I have asked you, but not too busy to return to your straw man and the words that you put into his mouth. But your even straw man would be much better named “John Calvin” than “St. Augustine”.

Here is a book for you:

The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church

In certain ultra-conservative Orthodox circles in the United States, there has developed an unfortunate bitter and harsh attitude toward one of the great Fathers of the Church, the blessed (Saint) Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.). These circles, while clearly outside the mainstream of Orthodox thought and careful scholarship, have often been so vociferous and forceful in their statements that their views have touched and even affected more moderate and stable Orthodox believers and thinkers. Not a few writers and spiritual aspirants have been disturbed by this trend. So it is that I am absolutely delighted to have a copy of Father Seraphim’s small, but powerful, tome on the significance and status of Saint Augustine in the Orthodox Church.

Hmm …. “an unfortunate bitter and harsh attitude toward one of the great Fathers of the Church”.

Please, answer some of the questions that I have directed to you, and address the points that I have made in my posts.

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

Go back and read my last half dozen posts. I have shown that in the essentials, that the Orthodox are in agreement with what the Catholic Church teaches about original sin, and I have done that using the Orthodox sources that Fr. Ambrose has posted. I didn’t quote Augustine once.

What you’re trying to show is that the Orthodox and RCC are in agreement, but you’re using material from the last century which is colouring your findings.

This is from the deliberate integration of Orthodox ideas from the time of Pope John XXIII, it can only confuse because it uses Orthodox expressions which come out of teaching that the RCC has damned as heretical. It doesn’t mean what the Orthodox really mean, and, it doesn’t mean what the RCC really means by its own doctrines which it has not given up, they are dogmatic.

But, as interesting as the subject is it’s not immediately relevant to this discussion which is still, I think, at least I am…, trying to explore the beginning of these differences. And here’s the problem, you don’t quote Augustine even once…

Augustine is the dogmatically approved progenitor of Original Sin, you can’t ignore him, nor can you ignore those who at the time argued against him, not in this discussion.

I’m sorry, I think it’s a waste of time discussing present understanding of grace etc. without first exploring and trying to make sense of the arguments and doctrines about it in the centuries when the ideas of Original Sin took shape and solidified into RCC dogma.

We seem to have a problem here, you won’t read what I post and I don’t see any point in following your arguments because they’re a distraction. And I don’t like being shouted at.

Since this is E-catholics discussion I will leave it to him to sort this out.

 

[Myhrr]

Sorry Tracy…

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr

I have read every word of what you have posted in this thread, and I have spent a lot of time responding to the numerous misconceptions that you have about Catholic dogma, e.g, your false assertions that Catholics don’t believe in uncreated grace and that Catholic don’t the believe that the Holy Spirit indwells in the souls of sanctified Christians.

I have made the quite reasonable suggestion that it would be much more fruitful for this discussion for you just to explain what YOU understand about ORTHODOX beliefs. Give us your understanding about the Orthodox conception of the grace that Adam possessed in the terrestrial Paradise before the Fall, and explain to us the consequences of Adam’s sin for himself and his progeny.

What you have bothered to reveal about your personal beliefs seems to me to be contradictory, as I pointed out way back in my post #78, i.e.:
It is clear to me that the Orthodox believe that the Uncreated Grace of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is bestowed by reception of baptism and chrismation. But that means that it must be possible for a man to NOT to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit if baptism and chrismation bestow this gift.

You have said that the ONLY way to conceive of grace, is to conceive it as the Uncreated Grace of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that you do NOT believe that people are born without grace. This is why I cannot fathom what you believe, because it seems to me to be full of contradiction.

Please clarify this apparent contradiction in your beliefs. When I understand what YOU believe, then perhaps we can discuss our differences in beliefs. That would be much more fruitful than for me to try and correct all your misconceptions about Catholic teaching, with me being in the dark about what you believe as an Orthodox.

We Catholics are still waiting for you to respond to this apparent contradiction in your beliefs, and this request for a response is quite germane to the original question asked in this thread.

 

[Myhrr]

Myhrr

I have read every word of what you have posted in this thread, and I have spent a lot of time responding to the numerous misconceptions that you have about Catholic dogma, e.g, your false assertions that Catholics don’t believe in uncreated grace and that Catholic don’t the believe that the Holy Spirit indwells in the souls of sanctified Christians.

You won’t even discuss RCC dogma. You continually refuse to explore the dogmas of your Church which come from Augustine’s revelation or the likes of Pelagius who argued against him so how can you possibly talk about “the numerous misconceptions I have about Catholic dogma”?

I have made the quite reasonable suggestion that it would be much more fruitful for this discussion for you just to explain what YOU understand about ORTHODOX beliefs.

I have: “The key difference which really must be remembered, is that the Orthodox do not have a definition of Original Sin, the RCC do.”

Give us your understanding about the Orthodox conception of the grace that Adam possessed in the terrestrial Paradise before the Fall, and explain to us the consequences of Adam’s sin for himself and his progeny.

I’ve already said it was uncreated grace and you think the RCC has the same because you reject Augustine. What more can I say? Where else can I go with this?

I’ve given you some stories from the Jews to think about.

What you have bothered to reveal about your personal beliefs seems to me to be contradictory, as I pointed out way back in my post #78, i.e.: It is clear to me that the Orthodox believe that the Uncreated Grace of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is bestowed by reception of baptism and chrismation. But that means that it must be possible for a man to NOT to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit if baptism and chrismation bestow this gift.

You’re still trying to understand this from RCC perspective in a similar way to sanctifying grace which RCC dogma has it that everyone is born without, that’s not how to start understanding uncreated grace, no one is born without uncreated grace. We are of uncreated grace.

You have said that the ONLY way to conceive of grace, is to conceive it as the Uncreated Grace of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that you do NOT believe that people are born without grace. This is why I cannot fathom what you believe, because it seems to me to be full of contradiction.

You’re still looking at uncreated grace as a commodity because that’s how the RCC has talked about it in its dogmas. As something created by God for man to be able to live with God, as Father Ambrose said, something apart from God; since that’s created it can’t be uncreated grace.

Please clarify this apparent contradiction in your beliefs.

We’re not discussing my beliefs, we’re trying to answer E-catholics questions.

When I understand what YOU believe, then perhaps we can discuss our differences in beliefs.

I believe that I am but what I am God only knows.

That would be much more fruitful than for me to try and correct all your misconceptions about Catholic teaching, with me being in the dark about what you believe as an Orthodox.

**"Matt16-18

**I’d just like to remind you and everyone here that I am not an apologist for the ‘Eastern Orthodox Church’. I have explained this before,"

We Catholics are still waiting for you to respond to this apparent contradiction in your beliefs, and this request for a response is quite germane to the original question asked in this thread.

I keep trying to remind you, it’s not germane to this question.

We either go back to discussing Augustine et al or I quit.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

My goodness, I take a few days off to move and look where the discussion goes. I will need some time to work my way through the literally hundreds of posts which have accumulated in my absence. I would like to say, however, that in the next couple of days the library system here at the glorious Univ. of Michigan will let me have access to their copy of the canons of Trent in Latin, and I think that it will help to clarify matters greatly once we know precisely what words the Tridentine fathers used; as such, I will post more in a couple of days when I have had a chance to read the decrees. In the meantime, take care to be well, all.

 

[Matt16_18]

Matt: We Catholics are still waiting for you to respond to this apparent contradiction in your beliefs, and this request for a response is quite germane to the original question asked in this thread.

Myhrr: I keep trying to remind you, it’s not germane to this question.

Puhleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!

You accuse Catholics of not understanding grace, and then when I ask you what alternative the Orthodox have to offer, you say that is irrelevant! Anyone can see that you resort to being evasive when asked to respond to a direct question that you don’t know how to answer.

This is a pattern that I have experienced many times when debating with the Orthodox. The Orthodox will accuse the Catholics of having their theology completely wrong, but then when the Catholic asks the Orthodox to state what alternative they have to offer, suddenly the Orthodox will get all huffy and declare that they don’t see any reason to give any answers. To complete the pattern, all you need to do now is to declare that you can’t give any answers because you have an “eastern mindset” that Catholics cannot understand. Yep, the Orthodox theology is “mystical”, something that Catholics can never understand with their atrophied “western mindest”, and it is wrong to use reason to try and figure out what Orthodox believe. Of course, it is perfectly OK to apply reason to show that what the Catholic belief is all messed up and then not offer a rational alternative.

The Orthodox are never going to convince me of ANYTHING if their only explanation is “believe that you are wrong because we say so”.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Boy oh boy, this thread is a doozy. I have rather dim hopes that it can even be rescued by now. I see that Matt has already tackled most of the corrections that need to be made (fat lot of good it has done him, but bless his heart he has made them nonetheless), but I guess I would like to reiterate a few points desperately in need of correction:

1. No one here is trying to claim that Trent or Florence are somehow no longer in effect. It is simply pointless of the Orthodox here to remind us that Trent and Florence are still in force, because we all agree on that much. The point where we part company is over the correct interpretation of Trent and Florence (and Orange and Carthage and Augustine himself, while we are at it). I still maintain that Myhrr is wildly off base in his readings of Trent and Trent’s subsequent interpreters, but I will wait until I have gotten my copies of the Tridentine canons from the library before I go any further into this point.
2. I am rather at a loss to understand how Myhrr can try to deny that God is angry at Adam and Eve. The Genesis account has God cursing them, heaping painful punishments upon them and driving them by force from their home. This certainly sounds like anger to me. If my wife said all of the same things to me which the Lord is recorded as saying to Adam and Eve, I would certainly conclude that she was angry with me.
3. Of course Catholics believed in apotheosis prior to Vatican II. Crikey, you would think from reading Myhrr that we Catholics did not count Gregory of Nyssa or Athansius as fathers. As Matt points out, even Thomas Aquinas (who was writing after the schism from the very heart of the Latin west) says that the point of Christ’s incarnation was to make us partakers in the divine nature.
4. I think that discussion of things like “energy & essence” or “created & uncreated grace,” while not irrelevant per se, do more to obscure than clarify in a discussion like this. I think that it is possible to answer E-Catholic’s question without going into this sort of thing, and it would be greatly preferable insofar as it would avoid an awful lot of unnecessary points where we could get bogged down.
5. Finally, a note to my fellow Catholics. I think that when the holy father says that Adam’s sin lead to “death as we know it,” we ought not to understand this as physical death so much as spiritual death. After all, Leo XIII, Pius XII and John Paul II have all affirmed that there is nothing about Darwin’s accounts of life’s origins which are necessarily at odds with Catholic teachings. Given that a Darwinian model of life’s emergence would entail several million years of life existing on this planet before the fall (and thus without “death”), if physical mortality came only after the fall, the earth would have been one great mass of bacterial slime several miles deep by the time of Adam’s trespass in such a scenario. Obviously this sort of claim would be at odds with Catholic teaching; that is, clearly the Church cannot maintain that Adam and Eve may have been swimming through a league-deep mire of E. coli. As such, when we say that Death came into the world with Adam’s sin, it seems to me that we must mean something other than the mere cessation of homeostatic processes.

 

[Matt16_18]

GrzeszDeL:

… I think that when the holy father says that Adam’s sin lead to “death as we know it,” we ought not to understand this as physical death so much as spiritual death. … if physical mortality came only after the fall …

Uh-oh. You might want to read my post # 100.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Matt16_18:

Uh-oh. You might want to read my post # 100.

At the risk of seeming exceptionally dense, I read post #100 and do not see anything there that necessarily contradicts the point I was trying to make. If there is a problem here, would you mind fleshing it out a bit more so that I know what you mean?

 

[Matt16_18]

GrzeszDeL:

I am rather at a loss to understand how Myhrr can try to deny that God is angry at Adam and Eve. The Genesis account has God cursing them, heaping painful punishments upon them and driving them by force from their home. This certainly sounds like anger to me. If my wife said all of the same things to me which the Lord is recorded as saying to Adam and Eve, I would certainly conclude that she was angry with me.

If I came home and found my clothes on the lawn, and the door to the house locked and guarded by a cherubim angel swinging a sword of fire, yeah, I might suspect that someone is angry at something I did.

He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Gen. 3:24

But God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary.
Num. 22:22

 

[GrzeszDeL]

For what it is worth, I do not see anything in Palamas’ take on Original Sin (at least in this homily; I would not pretend to have read everything he ever wrote) that is incompatible with the Catholic view enunciated in Trent. As I said before, it is not at all obvious to me that the eastern and western views of this subject are as different as some claim.

 

[Matt16_18]

GrzeszDeL:

At the risk of seeming exceptionally dense, I read post #100 and do not see anything there that necessarily contradicts the point I was trying to make. If there is a problem here, would you mind fleshing it out a bit more so that I know what you mean?

GrzeszDeL: “I think that when the holy father says that Adam’s sin lead to “death as we know it,” we ought not to understand this as physical death …”

I disagree with this, because we should understand this as physical death.

John talks about eternal damnation in the lake of fire as the “second death”. If there is a “second death”, then there must be a “first death”. The second death is the eternal damnation of a body-soul in the lake of fire. The first death is the physical death of the body, and the loss of the sanctifying grace of original justice in the soul.

Adam possessed holiness in the Terrestrial Paradise because he possessed the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace before the Fall. But the holiness possessed by Adam in original justice was inferior to the holiness of the blessed in heaven. Adam was predestined by God for “complete theosis”, as were all his progeny.

Adam’s sin brought physical death into existence in the material world, and not just for him, but for everyone and everything. Plants, animals, planets, and suns – all are subject to death because of the original sin of Adam. It is true that Adam’s sin entailed the loss of the sanctifying grace that he possessed under original justice. It also can’t be denied that the scriptures teach that physical death entered into the material world because of the sin of one man (Adam). Death is the enemy of God.

The state of holiness that Adam possessed in the Terrestrial Paradise was an intermediate state to the holiness of full theosis. The Fall dropped Adam and his progeny down to an even lower intermediate state than that of original justice . There is yet an even lower state still that humans can fall to, and that is the state of eternal damnation in the lake of fire. But there is also a higher state that we can reach from this temporary state of being. We can eventually realize what all men were predestined for - complete theosis with a glorified physical body living in a physical world free of death.

Myrrh brings up a very interesting point by stating that the Orthodox believe that Jesus would have incarnated into the Terrestrial Paradise even if Adam had not fallen. But Myhrr believes that death was already present in the Terrestrial Paradise before the Fall, a belief that is hardly shared by all the Orthodox.

Let us look at the ordinary Orthodox faithful that do believe that there was no death in the Terrestrial Paradise, and that it was God’s perfect will that the Second Person of the Trinity was to become incarnate in the Terrestrial Paradise. Do these Orthodox believe that the Incarnation would have had no effect on the physical world and on the theosis of men and women? Would Adam and his progeny NOT have been elevated in grace by the Incarnation, since they would have already possessed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before the Incarnation took place?

 

[GrzeszDeL]

It seems to me, Matt, that if we are going to claim that the cessation of biochemical activity to maintain homeostasis came into the world only after the fall, then Pius XII and John Paul II must have been mistaken when they claimed that there is nothing about Darwin’s theory that is necessarily at odds with Catholic teaching, because Darwin’s account of the origins of life cannot be reconciled to the idea that nothing at all died until the fall. There is, in other words, a contradiction between your claim that physical death originated in the fall and the claim that Darwinian accounts of the origin of the earth can be reconciled to Catholic teaching. If we have to choose between the two, I am inclined to go with Pope John Paul II on this one and believe that “death” in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans does not mean physical death.