Original Sin

[Fr_Ambrose]

GAssisi:

How does the following (which you quoted/ wrote) differ from the “Orthodox” understanding?

1. You are required to believe as infallible dogma that the first man Adam transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise and immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted and that he incurred through that offence the wrath and indignation of God and consequently death with which God had previously threatened him, and together with death, captivity under the power of the devil, and the entire Adam through that offence was changed in body and soul for the worse. Any who do not confess to the above are under RCC anathema.
   Greg

Dear Greg,

I have never held much brief for the Roman Catholic notion of “invincible ignorance,” and in particular when it is used as a let-out to explain how Christ can save non-Catholics. I’ve always felt it was demeaning to the Lord somehow – but after all these explanations of how the RC and the big-O understanding of Ancestral Sin differs, and you still come back again and again, as does Matt, and deny it…

It has even been said that the thunderously clear Prayer in the Catholic Baptism of Infants about babies receving the remission of all sins does not mean what it says(!!):

"Then dipping his hands in the Holy Chrism, and anointing the child on the crown of the head in the form of a Cross, he says:

"Deus omnipotens, Pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui te regeneravit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto, quique dedit tibi remissionem, omnium peccatorum (here he annoints), ipse te liniat chrismate salutis in eodem Christo Jesu Domino nostro, in vitam æternam.

"May Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He who has regenerated you by water and the Holy Spirit, and given you remission of all sins, anoint you with the chrism of salvation, in the same Christ Jesus our Lord, unto life everlasting."

As Article 1234 (given by you above) expresses it: "By following the gestures and words of this celebration with attentive participation, the faithful are initiated into the riches this sacrament signifies and actually brings about in each newly baptized person. …"

 

[GrzeszDeL]

The Orthodox Baptism Ceremony

The Blessing of the Oil and Anointing – Once the blessing of the water is complete, the Godparent will offer a small bottle of olive oil over which a prayer for the banishment of evil is read to make it “an anointing of incorruption, a weapon of justice, a renewal of soul and body, a defense against every influence of the Devil and a release from evil to all those who are anointed with it, or partake of it.” Some of this oil is then poured crosswise three times on the water in the font in order to render the consecration of the water complete. The child (now naked) will be anointed with the blessed oil on the forehead, nose, ears, mouth, chest, legs, feet, hands and back.

I do not think that this boldfaced section should be taken to imply that the Orthodox believe that the baby has committed some sort of sin, or necessarily even has any sort of connection to sin. I take that “release from evil” bit to refer to an evil spirit. In other words, I think that this part is more of a second, mini-exorcism rather than a prayer for the remission of sin, original or personal.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Fr Ambrose:

I have never held much brief for the Roman Catholic notion of “invincible ignorance,” and in particular when it is used as a let-out to explain how Christ can save non-Catholics. I’ve always felt it was demeaning to the Lord somehow.

Not to change the subject, but I could not agree more with this sentiment.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

RBushlow:

What was the “general view of the early church”, and why, then, did Jesus have to suffer and die if not to atone for our sins. Thank you for your patience.

OK, well, we know that the doctrine of the atonement was unknown in the early Church. The Fathers used quite a number of ways to describe what Christ had accomplished for us, and Ill get to them if you’ll bear with me. Because it is a frequent topic all I have to do is find on the computer bits and pieces which I have written previously.

Significant developments and innovations in theology were made by Anselm of Canterbury (died 1109) who developed the doctrine of the atonement, (although it was Thomas Aquinas who was the real architect of modern Catholic theology.) As a result, many ideas which Western Christians, Catholic and Protestant, would trace back to the Bible - such as the doctrine of substitutionary atonement (the belief that Jesus died as our substitute, bearing the penalty of sin) are really relatively recent developments and are not found in Eastern Orthodoxy.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Fr Ambrose:

OK, well, we know that the doctrine of the atonement was unknown in the early Church.

Well, you know, unknown except by everyone who had read the Bible…

 

[Myhrr]

GAssisi:

Dear Myrrh:

How does the following (which you quoted/ wrote) differ from the “Orthodox” understanding?

1. You are required to believe as infallible dogma that the first man Adam transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise and immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted and that he incurred through that offence the wrath and indignation of God and consequently death with which God had previously threatened him, and together with death, captivity under the power of the devil, and the entire Adam through that offence was changed in body and soul for the worse. Any who do not confess to the above are under RCC anathema.
   Greg

The God of the Orthodox is the God of Genesis I, creating the world good, providing food for man created in His image and likeness, male and female and blessing them to procreate etc., the world we’re in.

The God the RCC has taken on board is from the revelation of Augustine about the creation of Adam in Genesis II, but as Augustine defined it, by misreading. A God that created Adam and Eve and threatened them with death if they disobeyed him, an angry, wrathful God who banished them into a state of sin completely subject to satan, etc. and demands payment for this sin counting even infants guilty of it, and then Christ is seen as a substitutionary atonement to appease this God.

CCC 1250. Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism.

The ‘power of darkness’ is around, the Orthodox call this the adversary, as Christ was tempted by him, and it is seen as a positive force not just a lack of grace, and if that all sounds complicated I’m discovering it’s even more complicated than that. It seems many of the fathers in the West from Tertullian’s time, especially those from Africa, had leaning towards this idea, a dualistic God, creating Adam as separate from himself, and a vengeful God who demanded punishment etc. which Augustine drew on for his own revelation, man incapable of using his will to do good under the power of sin.

But God created us in his image and likeness, rational beings, and hence Pelagius’ arguments, that if God gave us laws, as in the OT, then he must have given us the ability to keep them, otherwise God is irrational.

Hopefully Father Ambrose can add to this, and if any here can add to it, I think we need to understand what was happening in the early Church.

Mother of God cover us with your veil!

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

St. Gregory begins with the distinction between “grace” and "essence: the Divine and Divinizing illumination and grace is not the essence, but the energy of God. The essence of God is absolutely incommunicable. The source and the power of human theosis is not the Divine essence, but the “Grace of God”: the divinizing energy, by participation of which one is divinized, is a divine grace, but in no way the essence of God.

Energies “proceed” from God and manifest His own Being. The term proceed simply suggests distinction, but not a division: the grace of the Spirit is different from the Substance, and yet not separated from it.

St. Gregory Palamas and Theosis

ESSENCE. What a thing is. The internal principle whereby a thing is what it is and not something else. Sometimes essence is said to be the same thing as being, but being merely, affirming that a thing is, without specifying its perfections. Essence is not quite the same as nature, which adds to essence the notion of activity, i.e., nature is the essence in action. Or again essence is substance, but not all essences are substantial because accidents also have an essence. (Etym. Latin essentia, essence, being.)

Pocket Catholic Dictionary - John A. Hardon, S.J.

Essence is what a thing is - the internal principle whereby a thing is what it is and not something else. St. Gregory makes the distinction between “grace” and "essence: “the Divine and Divinizing illumination and grace is not the essence, but the energy of God.”

Got it. The grace of God is not God. The energy of God is not God.

I think you’re closer here:

Essence is not quite the same as nature, which adds to essence the notion of activity, i.e., nature is the essence in action

adds to essence the notion of activity, energy; hence the uncreated energies of God such as grace and light are an extension of the essence.

It’s late and I’m getting bug-eyed from looking at this screen, good night all.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

GrzeszDeL:

Well, you know, unknown except by everyone who had read the Bible…

Dear Grz, I have to differ. The Atonement has no place in the
doctrine of the East, and particularly in the form developed by Anselm

• the offering of a sacrifice (the Son) to the Father in order to propiate the divine justice which required the punishment of the human race
  as the result of Adam’s sin.

I am posting a small thing which I used when debating the Atonement on a list which has considerably less theological knowledge than this august body (in whose company I do not usually dare to raise my humble voice, being nothing but a humble folk priest of the Russian Church on an Antipodean island.) So this small essay below is both polemical and not of a calibre which this list would expect… mea culpa… Fr Ambrose

Just to say a few things in explanation of why the Orthodox will have no
truck with Anselm and the atonement theology which he developed.

His writing of Cur Deus Homo was a significant development in the West (we even had to study it at Catholic high school), but it did not affect the East at all. It profoundly changed the Western theology of the atonement. For hundreds of years afterwards Western theology, Protestant as well as Catholic, traced (and still does trace) its soteriology (the understanding of salvation and how we are saved) back to Anselm. Because of the split between East and West, Anselm’s theology had little or no influence in the East.

For this reason, Orthodox Christians tend to see Catholics and
Protestantism, who are united in this and other doctrines, as having far
more in common with each other than either does with Orthodoxy.

continued…

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

… continued

Anselm developed what has been called the “judicial” theory of the
atonement. In his book he sought to answer the question “Why did God become man?” He found the answer in a concept in the mediaeval law of his time - the concept of satisfaction. If one person wronged another, it harmed the other person’s honour, and so the wronged person demanded compensation, or “satisfaction”. Man’s sin had offended God, and because God is infinite, and God’s honour is infinite, the insult man’s sin causes to God’s honour demands infinite satisfaction. But man is in no position to provide this satisfaction, so God sent his Son to offer the satisfaction on behalf of man. By dying on the cross he appeased God’s wounded honour, and made the full and adequate satisfaction for man’s sin.

Of course you know all that already, and it is a very much oversimplified
(but accurate) account of Anselm’s theology, as it has developed in the
West, but Orthodox theology did not know of this. The new Western theological development stressed salvation from an angry God, whereas Orthodox theology stressed, as it always had, salvation from sin, evil, death and the devil.

Anselm’s problem is that he could not escape being a prisoner of his own times and he developed his theology out of the current ideas of justice and satisfaction which he then read back into verses of the New Testament which he found sympathetic to his own thoughts. In other words, he allowed himself to overbalance, and he lost the precious balance which is the hallmark of true patristic theology. In creating his system he made the additional and gross mistake of relying too much on his own human reason, which in his work he even speaks of as “infallible reason.” Alas, the pride of the human mind!! Human reason is never infallible, and especially when it is being applied to the deep mysteries of God’s work of our salvation.

Since salvation is one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, this
difference means that Eastern and Western Christians have moved quite far apart in their culture and ethos and their understanding of what the Christian faith is about. Though the Roman teaching about the double procession of the Holy Spirit (filioque) brought about the parting of the ways, it is the countryside which those ways have traversed since the parting that makes us strangers to each other. The arguments between Catholics and Protestants took place, for the most part, out of sight and out of earshot of the Orthodox.

So Orthodoxy is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. It’s a whole 'nother ball game, as the saying goes.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

Got it. The grace of God is not God. The energy of God is not God.

Yikes! It is entirely the other way around.

Grace is one of God’s energies.

God’s energies ARE God.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

The Blessing of the Oil and Anointing – Once the blessing of the water is complete, the Godparent will offer a small bottle of olive oil over which a prayer for the banishment of evil is read to make it “an anointing of incorruption, a weapon of justice, a renewal of soul and body, a defense against every influence of the Devil and a release from evil to all those who are anointed with it, or partake of it.” Some of this oil is then poured crosswise three times on the water in the font in order to render the consecration of the water complete. The child (now naked) will be anointed with the blessed oil on the forehead, nose, ears, mouth, chest, legs, feet, hands and back.

GrzeszDeL:

I do not think that this boldfaced section should be taken to imply that the Orthodox believe that the baby has committed some sort of sin, or necessarily even has any sort of connection to sin. I take that “release from evil” bit to refer to an evil spirit. In other words, I think that this part is more of a second, mini-exorcism rather than a prayer for the remission of sin, original or personal.

I agree, it is a prayer for the release from sin in general, from the evil which threatens creation, from death, and from the devil.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

Yikes! It is entirely the other way around.
Grace is one of God’s energies.
God’s energies ARE God.

If you said God’s energies are of God, then no problem. But even the Orthodox believe that God is simple and not divisible into parts. So if God’s essence is what makes God, God, and his energies ARE God, then God’s energies is just another way of describing God’s essence, since God is pure act and God is simple.

But the Orthodox believe that God’s energies are “in no way the essence of God.” And the site that you referenced, says St. Gregory teaches that “the divinizing energy, by participation of which one is divinized, is a divine grace, but in no way the essence of God.”

Seems like another Orthodox contradiction to me. I am glad I don’t have to deal with this as a Catholic. Created grace just makes so much more sense, and the Catholic theology of grace is free of the contradictions that the Orthodox must contend with.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

Essence is not quite the same as nature, which adds to essence the notion of activity, i.e., nature is the essence in action

God is pure act.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

The Atonement has no place in the doctrine of the East, and particularly in the form developed by Anselm - the offering of a sacrifice (the Son) to the Father in order to propiate the divine justice which required the punishment of the human race
as the result of Adam’s sin.

The NAB uses the word “expiation”, not “propitiation”, because God is NOT hostile to man.

They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as an expiation, [8] through faith, by his blood, to prove through the forbearance of God–to prove his righteousness in the present time, that he might be righteous and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:24-26

footnote [8] Expiation: this rendering is preferable to “propitiation,” which suggests hostility on the part of God toward sinners. As Paul will be at pains to point out (Romans 5:8-10), it is humanity that is hostile to God.

… if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.
1John 2:1-2

How do the Orthodox get around the fact that the Apostle John says that Jesus is the expiation for the sins of the world?

How can the Orthodox not see that this verse from John’s epistle is speaking about the antitype of an OT type - e.g. the of the sacrifice for the remission of sin offered on the Day of Atonement?

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

God is pure act.

God is one.

We believe in one God creator of heaven and earth…

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

The NAB uses the word “expiation”, not “propitiation”, because God is NOT hostile to man.

RCC dogma has it that God is hostile to man.

Trent 5-1

You are required to believe as infallible dogma that the first man Adam transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise and immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted and that he incurred through that offence the wrath and indignation of God and consequently death with which God had previously threatened him, and together with death, captivity under the power of the devil, and the entire Adam through that offence was changed in body and soul for the worse. Any who do not confess to the above are under RCC anathema.

… if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.
1John 2:1-2

How do the Orthodox get around the fact that the Apostle John says that Jesus is the expiation for the sins of the world?

How can the Orthodox not see that this verse from John’s epistle is speaking about the antitype of an OT type - e.g. the of the sacrifice for the remission of sin offered on the Day of Atonement?

Because Christ is the Paschal Lamb:

(from the Greek)

Metropolitan Cyprian’s Paschal Encyclical 1999

“For our Pascha, Christ, was sacrificed for us.” (1)

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ and Children in the risen Lord:

Our Holy Church, on the radiant and glorious Resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ, once again celebrates and exults and rejoices “with an unspeakable and glorious joy.” (2)

Her light-bearing children, named after Christ, surround the life-containing Sepulchre of the risen God-Man “celebrating an eternal
Pascha.” (3)

All of the devout Orthodox living on earth, united in a single choir with lit candles, invite all creation to a universal celebration, chanting the divinely inspired troparion of St. John Damascene:

“Let the heavens rejoice in worthy manner and let the earth exult; let the whole world celebrate, both visible and invisible, for Christ is risen, eternal delight.” (4)

This festal and enthusiastic joy is experienced continually by our Orthodox Church; delight in the Resurrection is one of the primary
characteristics of Orthodox spirituality, of the genuine life in Christ.

The Jews, living in the shadow of the symbols and prefigurations of the New Testament, celebrated the Pascha of the Law, sacrificing a lamb and eating unleavened bread for seven days.

We Christians, however, celebrate the true and Divine and supernatual Pascha not just once a year, but continually throughout all our lives, eating, according to the Apostle Paul, the unleavened bread of “sincerity and truth”; (5) that is, living, as the Fathers say, “the purity of life and of the dogmatic truth.” (6)

Our Paschal Lamb is now our Lord Jesus Christ, “the new Pascha, the living sacrifice,” (7) “the Lamb of God” (8) Who “taketh away,” and obliterates with His Blood, the sins of all the world.

“For our Pascha Christ was sacrificed for us,” (9) notes the Holy Apostle Paul.

And of this rational and eternal Lamb sacrificed for us, we eat unceasingly in the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, for which reason we enjoy, throughout all our lives, an unending Pascha, celebrating in a godly and holy manner.

St. John Chrysostom speaks to us with particular Grace about the festal character of Christian life:

“Every hour,” says this Divine father, “is a time of festivity for Christians, on account of the excess of blessings bestowed”; “now let not one be dejected over poverty or illness or tribulations, for every hour is a festal one.” (10)

Elsewhere the God-Bearing Apostle Paul invites us thus:

“Always rejoice”; “rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say: rejoice.” (11)

---

continued

 

[Myhrr]

Continued to Matt16_18

Paschal Encyclical cont.

HENCE, The faithful rejoice and exult today, for “Christ is risen and life abounds,” (12) and truly life prevails. The Orthodox rejoice and celebrate all of their lives, for they eat and drink “the very sacred Body” and “the very sacred Blood of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, shed for the life and salvation of the world.” (13)

But they also rejoice and delight because, being under the all-radiant protection of the ever blessed Theotokos and “walking as children of light,” (14) they have assurance that, “through the gift of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (15), they are already, in this present life, “children of the resurrection.” (16)

As Christ-Bearing children of the Church, we Orthodox Christians await with intense and firm expectation and hope the revelation of the fullness of the gifts of the Resurrection and their glory at the Second Coming of our Lord on the “Last Day.” (17)

“For we know that when He shall appear,” says St. John the Theologian, “we shall be like unto Him, for we shall behold Him as He is.” (18)

And the Apostle Paul adds:

“When Christ our life shall appear, then ye shall appear in glory.” (19)

Now, in this present life, we taste “the first fruit of the Spirit,” (20) that is, we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a certain pledge of the blessings to come. This means that we have already begun to be like unto our Lord in glory through adoption in Christ: “For now we are children of God” but “it hath not yet been revealed what we shall be.” (21)

Then, on the Last Day, there shall be wholly and actively unfolded the adoption by Grace and our likeness unto God; the vision of His glory shall make us like unto Him; that is, we shall become, as the Saints explain:

“…like unto Him: as pure unto the Pure One, as righteous unto the righteous One, as radiant unto the Radiant One, as light unto the Light, as suns by participation unto the primal and genuine source, the Sun, and as gods by Grace with Him That is God by nature.” (22)

---

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ and Children in the Lord:

This is the lofty purpose of our life, our lofty calling: that we become like unto the God-Man and participate in His uncreated Glory and Blessedness.

With constant vigilance, in repentance and love and purity, let us keep alive and intense our expectation of the vision of our glorified Saviour Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory, honor and worship, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen.

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

Holy Pascha of the year of Salvation 1999

Your intercessor before the risen Lord,

• Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili

President of the Holy Synod in Resistance

orthodox.net/pascha/1999-pascha-kyprianos.html

 

[Myhrr]

It IS Pascha not Easter!

By Fr. Michael Harper

Pascha is derived from the Jewish word Pesah which means “Passover”. And here there is a direct link with the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 we read, “for our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed”. According to St John, Christ was crucified at the very time that the paschal lambs were being killed. There is another link with the Old Testament because of the importance to the Jews of the Feast of the Passover. The verbal form means to protect and to have compassion as well as “passover”. The experience of the Israelites was literally a “passover”, but it was also an experience of both God’s compassion for his people, and a great act of protection, as for example, the passage through the Red Sea. The crucifixion and later Resurrection of Christ took place during the Passover Feast. So for Christians Christ was clearly the Paschal Lamb, the fulfilment of all that the Passover had foreshadowed since the first Passover which celebrated the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Let us remember that because the word “Pascha” is in its origin a Hebrew word, by using it we are a witness to the Jewish community, for whom the Passover is still one of the most important words in their religious faith.

orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/fasts_feasts/harper_pascha_easter.htm

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

But the Orthodox believe that God’s energies are “in no way the essence of God.” And the site that you referenced, says St. Gregory teaches that “the divinizing energy, by participation of which one is divinized, is a divine grace, but in no way the essence of God.”

You are right, God’s Essence is not His Energies. The first remains forever unknowable to us. But His Energies, which include Uncreated Grace, is how He touches us, reacts with us and divinises us.

Seems like another Orthodox contradiction to me. I am glad I don’t have to deal with this as a Catholic. Created grace just makes so much more sense, and the Catholic theology of grace is free of the contradictions that the Orthodox must contend with.

It is created Grace which makes no sense at all. Now that the Catholics have adopted some Orthodox theology and terminology such as “theosis” - becoming by grace what God is by nature, (as Saint Peter explains it succinctly) you will be obliged to adopt the Orthodox understanding of God as Essence/Energies and of Grace as being God Himself.

Otherwise there is no other way to explain how we may become by grace what God is by nature.

If as the Catholics teach, Grace is a created thing, then it is simply not capable of raising us up to participate in the divinity. It cannot confer upon us what it does not have in itself. If it is created and belongs in the realm of creation, then that is the limitation of its powers and effects. There can be no theosis.

This contradiction about theosis and the nature of grace will become more acute now that Catholics have adopted more of the Orthodox theology of salvation as a process of theosis. The solution is to adopt more of Orthodox theology.

 

[prodromos]

Matt16_18:

If you said God’s energies are of God, then no problem. But even the Orthodox believe that God is simple and not divisible into parts. So if God’s essence is what makes God, God, and his energies ARE God, then God’s energies is just another way of describing God’s essence, since God is pure act and God is simple.

Ever tried to seperate a sunbeam from the sun? “Hey what happened to the sunbeam? Where did it go?”

Just as a sunbeam cannot be separated from the sun, neither can God’s energies be separated from His essence. That doesn’t make the energy of the sun the same as the essence of the sun though.